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http://www.billboard.com/#/features/beach-boys-engineer-talks-about-the-smile-1005071622.story (http://www.billboard.com/#/features/beach-boys-engineer-talks-about-the-smile-1005071622.story)

While Mark Linett is a two time Grammy Award winning engineer and producer who has worked with the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Jane's Addicition, Los Lobos and Randy Newman among others, he most closely associated with his work with the Beach Boys. For nearly 25 years, Linett has worked on the band's catalog and has produced the reissues of the entire Beach Boys catalog including the "Pet Sounds Sessions" and "Good Vibrations" box sets. He also works on Brian Wilson solo album including doing research in preperation for the 2004 release of "Brian Wilson Presents... SMiLE," for which Linett was nominated for a Grammy for best engineered recording. Here he chats about working on the SMiLE sessions, which he is producing in conjunction with long-time Beach Boy archivist Alan Body, for release later this year.

 

Beach Boys' Lost 'Smile' Album to See Release in 2011

 

How long have you been working on the "Smile" project to get it ready for release?

In one sense I began working on it 25 years ago. I have been working with Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys catalog since 1987. We first took a quick look at the "Smile" material back in 1988 and then it was shelved again until Brian Wilson put out "Smile" in 2004. We started working on it about August or September of last year [and] doing our digital transfers last fall; even though the project hadn't been confirmed, it seemed likely. That way when the project did get a green light, we would be a way a head of the game. And we knew we would be dealing with roughly 50 separate recording sessions for the project and that doesn't even include the sessions for "Good Vibrations."

How much work have you put into it?

At this point I would say we have put in a couple of hundred hours going through the roughly 50 sessions because we want to present them in a form similar to what we did on the "Pet Sounds" box, where the sessions are condensed down to the most interesting and informative to get the fly on the wall bits to give a real sense of how this project was created.

The Beach Boys have a tremendous amount of material in their vaults. We do know of things that have gone missing over the past 40-odd years. Now that the project has the green light, we think we have a better opportunity to make sure there is nothing else out there that we haven't been able to locate because the project has never come to fruition. So one of the objects here is to make sure that everything that still exists can be a part of this project.

How much of this project was completed before it was abandoned?

We are still working on the sessions so we haven't begun assembling what would normally be considered an album, which in this case will only be a representation of where the project got before it was put aside by Brian and the group. All of the tracks were recorded. A lot of the vocals seem to not have been completed.

Brian spent a tremendous amount of time on "Heroes & Villains". [There's] even a slightly longer version of the one that was released as a single, which includes several extra sections doesn't even have to begin to encompass every variation of that song. And I should point out that the most interesting thing about "Smile" is that it took Brian's original concept, which he first used with "Good Vibrations,"-he would record the song in sections in different variations and then sort of like a jigsaw puzzle, assemble the final backing track before going on to vocals.

So Brian spent most of his time on "Good Vibrations" and "Heroes & Villains"?

"Good Vibrations," if memory serves, was recorded twice as a complete songs. After the first two sessions, he started to record pieces. They would do a verse, a chorus, a bridge at various sessions and in different ways. "Good Vibrations" was extremely complicated, I can't remember exactly how many sessions were actually used to create the final backing tracks but it was quite a few - I think there were in excess of 20 backing track sessions that were considered for that song.

I am always astounded that if you listen, as I have, to the entire recorded output on that song; and then look at what was assembled as the final backing tracks and some of the experiments that didn't get used-it was an amazing accomplishment. I am just amazed that not only was he able to put that together, but of course it was so influential and successful at the same time. And originally, the song was much more of you would describe a Wilson Pickett kind of R&B number in the chorus and that ultimately didn't get used. When he got to "Smile," "Heroes & Villains" took that a step further and recorded enormous amount of different pastiches of themes both vocally and instrumentally.

What will the changes in studio technology bring to "Smile" today?

[Brian] was doing this with very primitive technology that we now do on a daily basis with digital recordings, reusing sections and moving them around. Its interesting to surmise if he had the current technology what might have happened. It would have been so much easier to do these experiments.

The advantage that we have now is digital editing that we didn't even have in 1996 when we were editing for the "Pet Sounds" boxset; it was still on tape with razor blades. So it goes a lot faster but there is still about 20 times as much material [on "Smile"]. But that almost makes it 20 times as interesting to present that much material.


"Smile" is one of the most bootlegged albums of all time. What will be new for the listener?

For most of them, the whole thing will be new. The Beach Boys have an enormous amount of material from their whole career and [since] we have been actively doing an archive project for about 10 years, there are things that we have discovered that the bootleggers missed.

And the other important thing is bootleggers tend to present every single take... We are obviously going to use the best versions and there are things that we can do that was just technologically impossible when those bootlegs were made in the 1980's.

For example, we can put Brian's vocal back into "Surf's Up," which was a group track in the 1970s [on the "Surf's Up" album]. Brian recorded a basic track with a full band for part one. And he also recorded a sort of a demo version, its just him double-tracked and a piano track. What the band did was they used the part one backing track and tried to fly Brian's vocal into that, but the technology at the time really made that impossible. So what happened was that Carl sang the [lead] vocal and overdubs were added [forthe Surf's Up album version]. And for the second half, they used Brian's piano vocal piece and added very few additions.

With the technology we have today, its much much easier to take Brian's vocal for part one and put it onto the backing track. I have done it and its quite nice. Now we have the ability to shift time things very easily so those synchronizations can be accomplished.

Will there be one complete version of the album in the way it was presented 2004 and will that album serve as the guide line for the "Smile" Sessions track listing?

We have gaps, we have missing vocals. We aren't missing any music which is heartening. All the songs were recorded. Most of it is there. I can't be sure that we won't still come up with something because we do know that there were other things recorded, but the tapes are no longer in the group's possession. And unfortunately they may have been destroyed years ago.

We have some rough mixes from 1966, which will probably become part of the quote album. There seems to be less of that than you might expect. That also leads to believe, it really wasn't close to being finished when it was put aside to go to the next project.

If you take Brian's 2004 version as a blueprint, [it will have] all of that music, all of the significant parts and even the little segue ways. For the most part, that project was heavily researched by myself and others to make sure Brian had available all the parts that had been recorded back in 1966 and 1967. Some lyric additions were made in 2004 that hadn't been completed before the project was abandoned. That's some of the questions that we have to do deal with. How will we are going to present those few pieces. But there really aren't too many. The biggest one is the song that became Blue Hawaii, which started out as a thing called "Loved to Say Dada," which is sort of the water section of the piece. That had background but no lead vocal.

What will you do. Will you add vocals?

Don't know yet.  The general consensus appears to be not to do any recording just because this is a historic piece, but its a little premature because we are still trying to get 30 hours worth of sessions down to some kind of playable length. Even at that, it will be at least 3 CD to represent the sessions.

But will you attempt to present it as an album in a certain song order?

Oh sure, we will present it probably on a single CD, and the vinyl will have to be three sides; I am not sure what the fourth side will encompass at this point. When we did Brian's version in 2004, it had to span 3 sides to fit. And there is another indication of I just don't know. I don't know if he was going to eliminate songs; it was surely never proposed than more than a single album to Capital at that time. Fortunately we don't have that restriction anymore; the CD will allow us 80 minutes which is more than enough. But we will certainly going to present the whole piece as close to it as was envisioned, or as is envisioned, as possible. Obviously, [it will be] with input from Brian as from everybody else.

Will it be in mono or stereo?

At this point I would probably say mono because that's the way Brian intended it, although the sessions will be presented in stereo. One other consideration, with some of the bonus space, we ight present at least some of the album, the stack of tracks version in stereo.

Were the Beach Boys on the tracks or was it mainly the legendary L.A. session musicians, the Wrecking Crew?

The tracks are, by and large, the Wrecking Crew. Carl is on some of the sessions; Dennis is on a few of them. And of course the vocals, there are numerous vocal sessions that are all the Beach Boys, depending on who is taking the lead, sometimes its Carl, sometimes it Dennis, sometimes its Brian. Most of the significant vocal sessions are group sessions and Brian seem to have gone back to the idea of doing the vocals with the group around one mike as opposed to doing the lead separate from the background, especially with "Heroes and Villains."

Will Paul McCartney be on the album?

If Paul McCartney is on "Vegetables," it is that version. This is one of those stories that has been told over the years and you would really have to ask somebody who was there to confirm whether Paul was there. Yes, there are two versions of "Vegetables," well there are three if you count the "Smiley Smile" version; and certainly one that will appear on the album version as well as the special version is that one Paul McCartney purportedly is participating in the vegetable crunching.

That is another point. There is versions of these songs that were not used. Brian re-recorded some of these songs again. It's clear which versions were meant for the album, but towards the end of the project he started thinking that some of these needed to be re-recorded and got as far as cutting tracks for two or three of them. And those will also be presented. There are a few extras., the song, "You're Welcome," which was the b-side of "Heroes & Villains" doesn't seem like that was ever going to be a part of the album; it didn't wind up being part of Brian's 2004 version, so that will be included in the sessions.

We are acting as the producers. But until we got something pretty well laid out, we are not going to get a whole lot of feedback from anybody. Some of these questions are hard to answer because not only haven't we assembled them yet, then this has to be played for Brian and the other members of the group and see what kind of input they have. Just because Brian did it the way he did it in 2004, [who knows if] he won't say we'll lets add, "You're Welcome," it will be a nice throwdown.

So how will you go about assembling the sessions portion of the project?

The boxset will present hopefully all of the [50] recording sessions [which comprise 30 hours] but do it in a condensed form so what the listener hears is like being the fly on the wall; so the listener hears the most important and most interesting parts musically and also the interaction between Brian and the group and the musician.

So everything they can get will be on this release.
"For most of them, the whole thing will be new. The Beach Boys have an enormous amount of material from their whole career and [since] we have been actively doing an archive project for about 10 years, there are things that we have discovered that the bootleggers missed."

Sounds promising. I guess this probably won't answer any questions like "what would air have been?" or "what were the lyrics for Look" or anything like that. But at least everything will be put out in the open.

good luck mr. linett.

So.... "Air" ISN'T "Wind Chimes"?  Or was that just a bootleg assumption at one point that people (including Brian and Darian for the 2004 line-up) stuck with?

It just seems so cut and dry - Fire is "Mrs. O'Leary" (duh), Water is "I Love To Say Da Da"/"Cool Cool Water"/whatever, Earth is "Vega-Tables" (as per the original Smile booklet), and Air is "Wind Chimes".

It sounds like they're planning to cut Carl's lead out of "Surf's Up" -- grumble, grumble, grrrrr.  :'(

I've never heard a version of SU with Brian on lead on the first half that I liked as much as Carl's lead. But that's just personal taste. YMMV

i'm happy to hear the switch.  carl doesn't sound quite right to me singing surf's up. 

BUT that also means no tag.  :'(

Very interesting. Sounds a little less set than the Capitol press release would suggest.

I do agree with folks that I find the BWPS template a strange starting point -- I would hope that if they do it, they just use the full tracks with pauses in between. I would hate to hear it with the segues, etc., since those are so clearly 2003-2004 additions. I like them in the context of the later work, which is really a wholescale reconsideration of the project, with a nod toward its history, but they would not work in an archival project.

Also, flying in Brian's vocal over the Surf's Up track seems pretty -- um -- odd. What's the point? To have it over the first part, then the piano demo (which is a 71 compromise) then "Child" vocals? Where would the "Child" vox come from?

I _really_ don't want a cut-and-paste, BWPS-sounding thing. It disrespects the history, and it disrespects BWPS, which should be allowed to stand on its own terms.

I agree, I think shoe horning the vocals from the piano version over the backing track is an absolutely awful idea.

I think we may be missing the point. It seems it is going to be the best of both worlds.

I don't mind any experimentation they do.   I'm surprised they're doing it though, given how conservative they've been with the catalog at times.  No stereo mixes of stuff like "Do You Wanna Dance" or "Help Me Rhonda" because of missing guitar solos but at the same time willing to time-shift vocals from the demo version and fly it into the backing track?

I do have to say that the mono-only thing distresses me.  If you're working from the session tapes, why not put the thing out there in stereo?  It's not 1967 and Brian isn't mixing.  Not to mention that a lot of the "finished" tracks were already released this way on the GV box set.

He acted like they had most of the segueways from the original tapes.  What? 


Somebody knowledgeable, count up the known SMiLE recording sessions, see if we already know about 50. 

I think all of this sounds great, Of course there's going to be people who won't like the Smile is presented but for me I'm going to have to go with what ADG said in another post and just be thankful to hold a copy of Smile on cd in my hands. Mark Linett has got a hell of a task ahead of him and I think we should all support him for having the balls to make an "Pet sounds" alike box set for us all to enjoy. I think when this Box set comes out it will be the last physical cd Box set I will be buying. I don't have any money but somehow I will scrap together the cash to buy the mega box set I've got at least a few months or so to save. And so let's all give our support to Mark Linett and the team unless of course he adds George fell into his french horn he he

I agree.  I don't mind using BWPS as a template for the running order since that was Brian's final statement on the album IMO, but I also hope they don't try to segue it all together.  Just give me the songs in the best quality available and I'm happy.  I also don't care for the idea of trying to recreate things that weren't there by flying in vocals.  I don't like that approach on any of the boots that try it and even though I'm sure Mark would do a better job I don't want to see it here either.  The Surf's Up backing track is great.  The piano demo is great.  Leave them alone!

I'm definitely intrigued by the remark about the longer version of the H&V single with the additional sections.  If they've uncovered a previously unreleased vintage assembly of that song that would be worth price of admission by itself.

I'm gonna be a real puss and say: however they do it, I will be pleased. Unless there are new vocals referring to Kokomo or something.

"Now that the project has the green light, we think we have a better opportunity to make sure there is nothing else out there that we haven't been able to locate because the project has never come to fruition. So one of the objects here is to make sure that everything that still exists can be a part of this project".

Amen and Godspeed, fellas! :o

Yes - because it was recorded in 1970-71. I like what they're doing. Historical integrity.

It would disrespect history more to have an early 70s vocal on a mid-60s track. I'm with Mark & Alan here: anything recorded post May 1967 - out.

I guess it just depends on how much fiddling of this type is done, and, honestly, how satisfying the final product is.

(Obviously discs 2-4 will be awesome. My comments in this thread have been exclusively directed toward the prospective disc 1.)

VERY interesting comment.  How many here would have said that the biggest gap on Smile is the missing lead vocal on I Love to Say Da Da?  I know I wouldn't have.  The  apparently missing lead vocals on DYLW and CIFOTM and several others seem much more significant.  Perhaps some of those lead vocals aren't missing after all? 

Heck, I Love to Say Da Da wasn't even a listed Smile track.  I enjoy the piece, but if it were eliminated completely from the hypothetical Smile album on Disc 1, would that be so bad?

i kinda want them to tag it with "you're welcome".  Hopefully brian and the boys have some suggestions.  I want them to put together the best album they can with what they got, no worries about what a piece of paper "tracklist" said.

and heck yes to putting brian's full vocal back in surf's up.  No reason to put the 71 version with 67 recordings.  plus carl has never sounded right singing it to me. 

I'm happy with whatever tinkering they do to piece it together.  I'm sure it will be done tastefully and sound great.  I've been listening to fan mixes and sessions long enough; I want to hear it presented as an official album by The Beach Boys, even if it never was.

Whenever I assemble or revise(with new material) my homemade "The Beach Boys Today"/"Summer Days...And Summer Nights" stereo two-fer, these two tracks are a source of frustration, but certainly Mark Linett could create stereo mixes better than the "Sea of Tunes" bootleg efforts. Yes, any stereo mix of "Do You Wanna Dance" inherently has to use the rejected guitar solo(replaced by a live during mono mix overdub on the released version), but the bootleg stereo mix lacks Dennis' overdub which doubled his lead vocal, but Mark Linett has that overdubbed voice on a "stage 2" multitrack(after the multitrack to multitrack reduction), which the bootleggers didn't have access to. While a Linett mix would still have the rejected guitar solo, it would have the double-tracked lead vocal.

As for "Help Me Rhonda", there's something that could be done there too. As you are aware, the piano & guitar solo were a live-during-mono mixdown effort. My idea: during the instrumental section, put a new mix of the basic tracks at left & center, and the original mono mix(with the guitar & piano) at the far right(I.E. synchronising the two tapes)

Why does it disrespect history? Isn't the early 70's part of the past? Isn't the early 70's part of Smile's past, as well? It was worked on for release by Warner's wasn't it? This is a Beach Boys release, not a Brian Wilson release. If the Boys' worked on it later, than it should be included as well. Plus, I agree with Emdeeh that Carl's vocal on Surf's Up is sweeter and best suites the lyric. That first disc will sound incomplete if there are too many missing vocals. Disc one is supposed to be the close approximation of what the released version might have sounded like.

Once again...

This release is called The Smile Sessions. Those sessions took place 1966-67.

Carl's vocals on "Cabinessence" and "Surf's Up" were recorded for release on, respectively, 20/20 (1969) and Surf's Up (1971), not Smile. Therefore they are not part of the original sessions on two counts, time and intent. With me so far ?

Smile was not, to my best knowledge, worked on at all for release on Reprise. the tapes were auditioned, copied and put back in storage.

"Disc one is supposed to be the close approximation of what the released version might have sounded like." In 1967, therefore the presence of 1968/71 vocals would be, at best, incongruous, more honestly misleading.

Even under the worst(as some see it) scenario, I.E. that there is some Protools doctoring or 2011 overdubbing on the "Smile" box set, we've always got our "pure" versions on bootlegs, and undoubtedly, the "sessions" section of the new box will give us plenty of new(or sonicly upgraded) stuff to use in expanding or improving our homemade "Smile" discs. It's really a win/win situation. We'll get some good new stuff(that we didn't already have) in the box, though how much remains to been seen. And by sending a message that the box set is still in the compiling stage, anyone out there who is hoarding lost tapes has an opportunity to return them or sell them to Capitol.

I can't argue with your points there. But if there are not enough lead vocals on Disc One, then I have a feeling that the idea behind doing it will fall short.

The one thing everyone knows about Smile is, it was never finished. No-one's expecting a polished, 'proper' album.

I don't get why people want Carl's lead on 'Surf's Up' or the completed version of 'Cabinessence':

Let's not forget that these versions have been released. If I want to hear the finished coda of 'Surf's Up' - I'll listen to my Surf's Up album....likewise with 'Cabinessence' on 20/20. I am glad they aren't @#$%ing things up for the sake of an appearance of a somewhat finished album.

There's no way the instrumental Cabinessence will turn up on CD1, Mark has said it'll be as close to Brian's vision as possible!

They're working with the 1966-67 tapes, and there's no "CE" lead vocal on those. Given that he's stated the intention of flying in the "SU" part 1 vocal from Brian's Columbia 'demo', I don't see them using a 1968 vocal just for the sake of 'completeness'. I really hope they don't.

I agree.  I don't think anything past '67 should be on the album.  Unfinished and all.  I don't mind them mixing stuff that was recorded back then... if they can tell that's how it was supposed to be, but no new stuff.

The fact that Mark has already flown in the Brian piano vocal onto the "Surf's Up" backing track suggests that a certain amount of manipulation might be done in an attempt to present the album in as complete a form as possible. The Carl lead on "Surf's Up" won't be used because the manipulation of the '66 Brian vocal allows a lead vocal to be present without leaving the '66/'67 timeframe. "Cabin Essence" strikes me as being on the fence. The 20/20 version was included in the SMiLE selections for the GV Box Set and I'm thinking it would be included here since it is so damn close to what Brian intended to do with the track in '66. If they stick with the rule that nothing outside '66/'67 gets in, then "Cabin Essence" will at least have the chorus and tag vocals.

Personally, I don't mind some manipulation and experiments in putting together the "album" disc. As others have mentioned, a lot of these tracks have already been released. The '71 "Surf's Up" has been re-released four or five times on CD since the first issue of the SURF'S UP album - we don't need it yet again! Something fresher, even if it involves a bit of 2011 technological magic, might give this presentation a better sense of identity apart from just being a collection of the various tracks that have already seen an official release.

Disc 1 will not be to everyone's liking, I can see that right now. It might be best to do it as all sessions with no approximation of a released version.

Exactly!  You realize that a large percentage of us are just going to dissect it and change it around anyway after we get it in our grubby hands!  At least this time around it'll all be legit.

Agree that it will not be to everyone's liking. Disagree that it would be best to do it as all sessions.

I really believed a "Sessions" collection was the only way to do it, given the lack of vocals. But the edict seems to be: give us a disc that presents a partially-completed album and Mark and Alan certainly know what they have to work with. The SOT assembly is a pleasant listen (as is my own version of SMiLE which involved a LOT of manipulation to make it sound more complete  ;)), so I'm sure the single disc will be an enjoyable addition. The remaining three discs will be where the more academic approach needs to be taken and I'm sure it will.

To be honest, I was content having Brian's approximation of the album seven years ago; this release is all (laughing) gravy...or the frosting on the cake...or the cherry on top. The only disappointment I'll feel is if the damn thing gets cancelled again!

When I got the Beatles Anthology 2 and read in the liners how tracks had been flown in from other takes, I was disgusted, because there was no legitimate reason for doing this except to create a 'new' mix. Flying in Brian's vocal from the 'demo' version of "Surf's Up", I can handle. One, it's subbing fro something that doesn't exist... and two, we'll have the original track anyway on the sessions CD.

Let's not forget those lazy-idiot critics like Christgau and that king-sized dork Jann Wenner.  I'll be willing to bet they want something easy and straight forward (like an approximation of a released version).  Lots of people will take bets on an unsure thing if a critic lauds it.  It 40+ years later so what harm could it do for them to give a good review?

I think you're reading into this too much. Reread this: "What will you do. Will you add vocals?

Don't know yet.  The general consensus appears to be not to do any recording just because this is a historic piece, but its a little premature because we are still trying to get 30 hours worth of sessions down to some kind of playable length. Even at that, it will be at least 3 CD to represent the sessions."

So, right now, it's still definitely a possibility. I think they're adding Brian's vocals on "Surf's Up" because "Surf's Up" was Brian's baby. It almost certainly would have had him on lead vocals had it been completed in the '60s. The only reason Carl sang the first part is because an insecure Brian in the early '70s refused to do it.

Actually, my understanding is that Brian attempted to re-record the lead, but couldn't do it justice...probably due to the song's history, his insecurity and his lack of care in regard to his voice.

OK, leaving aside the historic nature of the project, how many of the band sound exactly like they did 44 years ago ? Less than one. The words "thumb" and "sore" spring to mind. If this happens, my respect for both Mark, Alan and The Beach Boys would take a sharp kicking. I don't believe Mark or Alan would do that unless instructed to from 'above'.


Just so - he wasn't happy even trying, but in the event, his voice wasn't up to the task, I was informed by someone who was at that session.

But Wenner was never really a Beach Boys fan, so why be concerned what he thinks? As part of San Francisco vs. Los Angeles musical rivalry in the 1960's, Wenner took the stance that talk of Brian's "Genius" was merely a promotional hype, and his attempts to compete with The Beatles were hopeless.

I think using BWPS as a template makes a lot of sense. Funnily enough, I asked Mr Linnett in his thread about how feasible fitting all the vintage sessions into a cohesive BWPS template would be about a year or so ago but he didn't respond to that question (unsurprisingly!).

I think they obviously have a challenge but I'm with Lance in having faith they'll respect the material and do a grand job.

I think having a listenable smile album within the box demands that there be some tinkering and historically inaccurate stuff going on. If you don't like it, you'll have plenty of session material to play around with.

The most interesting part of the article for me was the suggestion that there's a longer version of H&V than the single kicking around, or am I misinterpreting that?

Granting that my Smile knowledge is less than most here: I've followed forever, and probably have most all the boots, but haven't ever gotten into analyzing/keeping up.
 Is the nonexietence of Cab lead vocals on the tapes a definite? as in, there might be acetates or unheard tapes that conatin some lead vocals?
Just asking, is all. 

I'm not concerned (he may give it a glowing review for all I know), but I bet Capitol Records is a lot more interested in what he would think than what I would, which is how it should be since his opinion carries more weight with the CD buying public than mine ever will (gall-drat it).  I'm just grumbling.

I've always felt that CE and Surf's Up were two different beasts. Specifically, Carl's vocal on Cabinessence doesn't move it into another era in terms of production, and it was added only about a year and a half after Smile was shelved.  In contrast, 71 version of Surf's up *sounds* like it was recorded in 71 because of that synthesizer/organ posthumously added to the intro. Ugh. No 71 Surf's up session material for that song, please.

At any rate, if they go with an instrumental only version of CE for the "official album" that's fine, but I would include the version with Carl's vocal on the bonus disc.

"what the released version might have sounded like".  CE would have had a lead verse vocal.  Like some others here, I see no reason to exclude a vocal done less than 2 years later in order to issue an even LESS-finished version for the general public, on grounds of historical accuracy.  The 1971 "SU" on the other hand, as others have posted, or "Cool Cool Water," including synthesizers and the like...no, a 1967 Smile would not have sounded like that. 

Yet, as others have commented, if I'm not happy with the CE included, I can do my own assembly using the 20/20 version.  So basically, yes I too will accept gratefully what is given.  And FWIW, my vote is for a well-done flown-in Brian SU vocal.

Yep-leave out anything after May '67.

I can't remember right off hand-was Dennis' vocal for CE done in '68 or '66?

If Secret Smile is anything to go by, Cabin Essence just lacked a lead vocal on the verse and a polish up on the chorus mix. I wouldn't mind the 1968 lead, honestly. The song needs a lead if only because they are some of the best lyrics on the project.

I agree that "CE" needs those Carl vocals. A beautifully remastered version of "CE" with Carl's vocals would be a good step towards getting more of the general listening public interested in the release. And I'm confused by people saying it's only "close" to Brian's vision. What else could Brian have done, except maybe add an interesting transition or two between the verse & chorus? Keeping in mind that nothing that could fit was recorded. So what else could've been done?

Yup, I agree... also that particular song, there's a precedent with it that the finished version ended up having the same lyrics, etc. so it's a no brainer really to use the demo vocals.  They just literally never recorded a vocal for it, and here's an early vocal for it.  Easy enough. 

I actually referred to the 20/20 version as damn close! Going by '66 standards, I believe Brian would have requested a brighter/punchier lead from Carl. The existing vocal is fine but it does have that somewhat laid-back FRIENDS-era vibe, different from the way Carl sang "God Only Knows" or "Good Vibrations". I also think the mix would have been different if Brian had completed it in '66 with the group vocals a little bit more upfront and, perhaps, a little less echo. Certainly it would have been in mono.

Again, the CE lead seems like the hardest call - the song is arguably the most important SMiLE track behind "Heroes & Villains" and "Surf's Up" (and "Good Vibrations" if you're counting); do you really want to put it out without a lead vocal? Apart from the abandoned "Wonderful" take, does Carl even have another lead on the SMiLE sessions? I guess the "Water Chant" counts, sort of...but you know what I mean.

OK, I wasn't going to get into this more, but here's my bottom line -- I find Carl's vocal on "Surf's Up" to be exquisite and very sensuous. I just that I like Carl's singing on this particular song better than any version of SU I've heard with a BW lead.

And I can certainly put together my own custom running version of Smile post-release to listen to, as I'm sure we all will.  :)

I agree. The backing track is stunning enough on its own without adding Brian's vocal, which in any case is slightly out of tune and seems to have been a bit beyond his range, possibly due to all the ciggies and joints he'd been smoking. Mind you, if it was pitch-corrected I wouldn't mind hearing it as an extra track of some sort.  ;D

Absolutely. I don't understand the obsession with Brian singing Surf's Up. Carl was a better choice for this as he was also for GOK and and Breakaway among others.

One upon the sandwich isles, the California Girls steamed upon Kokomo

Are you talking about the studio recording of Brian singing "Surf's Up" over the piano track or the performance at home featured in the INSIDE POP special? I agree his performance at home isn't too grand but the studio performance released on the GV Box Set is exquisite.

The fascinating thing about Cabinessence is how it was reported DENNIS was in mind as the lead character singing the lyrics - not Carl, not Brian. Obviously there was something about having Dennis play the narrator which made sense to Brian and Van Dyke when they were creating the song. And obviously Dennis only got to be the narrator for "Truck drivin' man", which got buried in the mixes we know.

I am also of the opinion the project should stop at May 1967, and what was unfinished remains unfinished. If you're buying this set, you already own the later versions and to me it wouldn't make sense to place them in this context - a historical, archival context - for some sense of completeness which wasn't there when the project ended.

Unless I'm mistaken these are the same. And they both have problems...  ;D

The studio take is different to the home footage.

Disc 1 is a minefield. I just don't know how you do it.

One one hand, you don't want to make it a patchwork of previously released tracks -- and some two-thirds of the tracks have already been released in near-finished form. (Prayer, H&V, SU, Cabinessence, Veggies, Wonderful, Wind Chimes, Good Vibes.)

But, if you're trying to make a nice selection of the music recorded, in a coherent playing order, I don't see how you can go without Cabinessence lead vocals. And Surf's Up does need to be on there with lyrics -- they make the song. These are the two posers. And it's hard to see how some of the '93 box set stuff will be much different, unless radically different takes are selected.

Yes, these things have been released, but how can you omit them without harming the end product? You may own them, but if this is the definitive Smile box, surely we should have a "best of all possible versions" disc 1. The material deserves that. But if you follow BWPS -- and what Mark wants to do with Surf's Up -- are we going to have Brian's piano demo vocals overlaid on top of "barnyard" and "I'm in Great Shape" tracks too?

I don't know. Glad these things aren't my call.

I was thinking about that also.   The Vosse interview talks about Dennis being meant to sing it, and while Carl's lead here is beautiful,  it would've been killer to have Dennis singing this.     Cabin Essence has always bugged me in that the song was virtually complete but for that lead on the verse.  All the other vocals were done.  Mike had issues with uncovering the cornfield, but he did it anyway, those are there.  And the verses even have backing vocals, so why not a lead until '68?   Dennis was notoriously antsy in the studio, and was possibly the one most likely to miss a session (intentionally or not).  I think of Brian's message on the back of Summer Days where he explains that Dennis was supposed to have sung a lead for the album, but fell asleep in his "camper truck" the day of the session.    
My biggest excitement for this release is in the things that they might have dug up that nobody has heard before (missing vocals perhaps??  Not at all likely I know, but wouldn't that be awesome.)
I'd agree with the sentiment to not use anything recorded after '67.  

Brian spent a tremendous amount of time on "Heroes & Villains". [There's] even a slightly longer version of the one that was released as a single, which includes several extra sections doesn't even have to begin to encompass every variation of that song.

I can't work out if Mark is suggesting here that they've unearthed a longer edit of H&V than the single release, or if he's just referring to the known array of extra Heroes sections that would effectively make up a longer track if edited together? Seriously exciting if they've found a longer vintage edit.

we have been actively doing an archive project for about 10 years, there are things that we have discovered that the bootleggers missed.

This also looks interesting although don't want to get my hopes up too much for any unbooted material.

18th of May..

As someone who goes back a long way with the hopes of a released SMILE, I must say that this whole thing absolutely blows my mind!  I had a good friend who always dreamed of a SMILE release, this friend took his own life a few years ago and sadly will miss this.  Since this was Brian's project, and Brian couldn't piece it together to finish it, and since subsequent efforts have also failed to result in a finished product, I for one will be happy with whatever we get.  I do agree that the release should include only material from the original sessions, I don't want new vocals for sure.  But who would have ever thought this stuff would get an official release in our lifetime?  Special times, for certain.  

It would be a damn shame to leave off Carl's '68 Cabin Essence lead on the forthcoming release of the Smile Sessions.  Unlike some tracks on BWPS, the lyrics for Cabin Essence existed before the project was scrapped, and are central to understanding one of the most essential tracks on the album.

Cabin Essence should keep Carl's lead, unless they've uncovered a Dennis or Brian lead from the actual sessions.
but i hope there's a version with just the "doing-doing-doing's" too! when were those recorded?


I'm guessing Tones will be included? i'd like to see Hawaiian Song/Little Pad on there too since it's seemingly related, and since the Hawaiian theme played out on BWPS.

I've seen it posted somewhere that Bruce Johnston has an acetate with an unreleased mix.

i'd be shocked if cabinessence completed isn't on disc one.  It sounds like to me they're gonna put together as much as an album for disc 1 as they can. 

i also think tracks 1&2 should just be our prayer -> heroes and villains a la BWPS and purple chick.  that's the definitive version.  Save the long edits with all the extra stuff for disc 2.

The "Doing Doing Doing" bits were Brian's last work on "Cabinessence" during the "Smile" sessions.

You guys know what's going to happen right?  It's all right there in black and white.

Supposedly it's comming out IMMINENTLY.  Mark says he hasn't mixed it together yet.  ...

Soon, he'll hand the tracklisting over to powers that be at Capitol Records, and they'll print up the artwork and the boxes.

Then Mark will start wearing a firehat and have a jungle gym installed in his foyer, and we'll never see the album. 

I've also seen Bruce mention that. 

Bruce does indeed have a "Heroes And Villains" acetate that he has spoken about multiple times.  But I don't think he's ever actualy given any specific info to fans as to what kind of mix it is.  It would really be cool if it's an unknown or "lost" mix.  Given the fact that Brian seems to be supporting this project, I would think that Bruce would be willing to make his acetate available if that particular mix is not already in the hands of those doing the project.

This specific section appears in David Oppenheim's notes from the "Inside Pop" filming, suggesting he and CBS News had filmed a vocal session where the "doyn doyn" vocals (or Doin Doin, I forget how the notes spelled it...) were being attempted, placing at least the attempt to record that part to 1966.

8ruce mentioned his H&V acetate some years ago on the BBB - yellow - board.  Also stated that he'd added it to the contents of a time capsule being buried beneath the foundations of a building on Hawaii. A Bruce-ism, one hopes!

Yellow  board is probably the best place to grill him about it.

What I would like to have in the box set (if it comes out - we've heard it all before, haven't we... ;/ ) is a dvd where someone explains in detail the intelligent moves of the tracks. Like in "Cabinessence", right after "mellow", where the lead and the banjo intertwines (or how to say it - sorry my English is not so good). I hadn't noticed how clever it was until I read a story about it - or was it an interview in a documentary? Please help... :)

Don't we all own the completed version of Cabinessance several times over already? If the set is to be called Smile Sessions then it should only feature what was recorded up 'till May '67. The whole point of the project is to show to the fullest extent what Brian achieved before he scrapped everything. Y'know, to show what could have been possible if it had been released back then. We all know how Cabinessance turned out with overdubs 18 months later, so wouldn't that make it's inclusion redundant?

I see what you are saying, and indeed, it will not be a big deal for us if its half-completed. However, in my opinion, bending the rules a little would not be out of order. There are at least reasons to include the 20/20 reasons.

1. It's one of the GREATEST songs of all time. Anybody buying this due to hype who has only be exposed to the hits needs to hear it--the backing track is brilliant, but the vocals versions put it over the top.

2. It will make disc 1 all that more listenable, and I think that this will be a historically important disc, disc one needs to be listenable above all.

Definitely if there isn't a version that would represent a completed version as of 1967 somewhere on this set, I'll be disappointed, and surprised. But I vote, in the interests of overall listenability and commercial and wide-spread critical appeal that it be the completed version on disc 1--which is all we are really talking about, I think we all trust the sessions will be done at least as well as Pet sounds..

I'm split on my druthers regarding Surf's Up. I have never been fully convinced by any Surf's up mish-mash of demo and backing track,(and ditto on Barnyard and other mash-ups I've heard) on the other hand, the casual listener or novice listener won't mind. Also I think the 1971 version just can't be beat what with the CIFOTM tag and all. I would also vote, for reasons of listenability to include the Surf's Up version(and the demo/backing track on one of the other discs. )

I think you've struck on something there: I suspect that that CD1 might be released in stand-alone form sometime in the future, just as POB was in the wake of its Legacy edition. All the more reason to snap up the limited editions before those tracks go out-of-print.

If we've had this much debate about 2 songs, I can't imagine the discussion that will arise among the individual Beach Boys (mostly Mike, Al and Bruce) when they hear Boyd/Linett's first draft.  Many of us probably have a better idea what exists than they do (because they have real lives and aren't insanely obsessed with a 44-year old unfinished album).

After writing about "Inside Pop" and Cabinessence, yet again the thought of how amazing the missing/unused CBS footage really was to have captured the Smile scenes in full color...it's overwhelming if you're a fan of Smile to think "what if?" in this case.

Damn, I wish something would break with that case.

I can't believe people are ALREADY planning on making their own tracklists.

People... THIS IS "SMILE"!  If you thought Brian Wilson's "Smile" was the final say, this is the REAL final say!  This is "Smile", as recorded and released by the Beach Boys!  The album everyone's been waiting 44 years for!  No, it's not "complete", but then you can't miraculously go back and make Brian finish it.

You wanted "Smile" to be released, you're getting "Smile".  Period.  This is the absolute final say of how Brian wants it.  PERIOD.

Uh, sorry, no.  I don't think that there will be a "final say" on Smile until the last Beach Boys fan in the world is dead.   

And even after that, the debate might be continued by robots.

Brian Wilson 2011 is not the same Brian Wilson as Brian Wilson 1966. And Neither of those Brian Wilsons is the same Brian Wilson as Brian Wilson 1967. So I really don't think this will be anything close to a final definite say.

Brian Wilson is alive and well he did not die when Smile did. People can say that Brian is not the same, his ex his mates his hangers on.. They have changed too, matured, aged, progressed..Brian did his thing in 66-67. We will hear what he did, we can go and buy it, show our friends and hear it critiqued. the time has come Smile will arrive! Its like january 67

After thinking about it more, I'd be happy with "Surf's Up" 1971 if they got rid of that damn organ overdub! That's why I don't like it as much. I think they added the organ to make it fit in with "Tree" & "Til I Die", which both featured strong organ parts, but it was still a mistake.

Quite. Brian began by making beautiful music to soothe his soul; much of his motivation was to do with working through very personal feelings via the medium of music, but with Smile he created this kind of voracious serpent that started to endlessly replicate itself and ended up getting completely out of control, and in this sense it was quite an accurate reflection of (and partly responsible for) Brian's mental/emotional state and his ultimate breakdown.

For me (and this is entirely subjective) I think Smiley Smile is the closest we'll get to a finished Smile: it has many of the elements that he spoke of in terms of humour, has moments of great beauty, and is avant garde enough to interest the intellectually/musically curious (I wish they'd do an official stereo release). So much of Smile is rambling and repetitive, childish and simplistic, and was too far from the place where the great Brian Wilson operated for it ever to be successful (in my humble and very personal opinion).

Yes, there are great things accomplished as part of Smile, both musically and vocally, but how much is genuinely great? Not much.

But having said that, I can't WAIT for the box set!  :)

Indeed.  Brian Wilson is alive and well, and working on a much less ambitious project.  ;D

It's tempting to think that it's mythical nature has exaggerated Smile's greatness way beyond the reality of what would've been but Heroes and Villains, Cabinessence, Surf's Up, Wonderful, Good Vibrations, Worms, Child are all solid evidence of its greatness, and that's putting aside a lot of beautiful material such as Barnyard, OMP and The Elements sections that we don't know what he'd have done with.

It may not have been commercially successful had it been released, it may not even have worked conceptually very well, we just don't know, but aesthetically it would've stood the test of time I'm sure. You just have to listen to the verse of Child to get a sense of how awesome Brian's talents were at this point.

Also part of Smile's greatness is now interwoven with it's unfinished-ness - that it's an interactive album: An amazing puzzle with all these little jewels that can be eternally reconfigured.

I am in two minds about Cabinessence. When I listen to the track I prefer listening to the 20/20 version. I like it being complete. While I understand historical accuracy falls into play here, I would not be opposed to a mono mix of the track using the 1968 vocal. However, I would like to see it as a remixed _non-synthetic stereo_ vocal. That I could happily and unashamedly live with. An asterix and liner note disclaimer about that track and as far as I'm concerned everything is sweet.

I'm in two minds too. I'd be amazed if they didn't use the 20/20 version for the playable album disc though. If Mark is talking about the possibility of recording new vocals for that disc (although I doubt it will come to that) using the original cabinessence has to be a given.

However, if they keep it purely 66/67 that will be sweet. I find the Cabinessence backing track in some ways more incredible without the lead, as you can really focus on those beautiful doing doings. (My kids love it and request 'doing doing' quite a bit!)

I have no problem with Mark doing an Anne Wallace with Surf's Up, and will be interested to hear his mix.

As somebody else mentioned, the only mix that would make my toes curl is if they fly the humble harv vocals in over the barnyard track. That's never worked on any boot. I'd imagine the quality control on this will be pretty high, so hopefully non of it will sound too fan-mixy.

Finally I'm intrigued to think how they might handle H&V for the playable album. The best bet imo is that they just use BWPS as a template for the tracklisting, but maintain the original structure of the songs themselves i.e. don't start trying to do a BWPS mix of Heroes. If they try and remix heroes a la BWPS surely they'd have to fly in bits of Smiley Heroes, there's the difficult transition between Gee and the start of Heroes (the keys don't work) and also how will they segue Western theme into Worms without Darian's 04 link section? What the purple chick mix made apparent to me was that in many instances the original tracks just can't be segued into one another due to key or tempo mismatches - Look into Child is a good example. If they keep the original song structures, then they can just fade without any problems. Of course I'm no studio engineer - maybe they can do the Purple chick mix par excellence in which count me in.

The BWPS template for H&V is entirely possible if they just get rid of the Surf's Up quote played by the orchestra right at the end. No reason why that can't be left off.


I don't know much about the mentality of the bootlegger, but how appealing is the prospect of returning tapes?

Also the official BW press release, http://www.brianwilson.com/news/press_03-14-11.html in which Al, casual as ever, mentions playing his old Smile acetates just the other day.... You smug git, Jardine  :lol

Interesting how history is related in that official release, beginning w/  "The reason SMiLE did not see a release in early 1967 had more to do with back room business that obscured the creative side of the program than anything else."

Wow thanks for the link - hadn't seen that yet.

Great quote about Jardine playing his old acetates. Makes the prospect of unbooted material more promising.

As for following the BWPS template exactly, I'm not so sure. For instance, the newly recorded link track between Heroes and Worms is essential in BWPS as the songs are in different keys, so how would they get around that if they intend to Purple Chick it? Also Child and Look are in different tempos so editing them together has got to be triky unless they pitch shift one of the tracks, but then Wonderful, Look, Child and Surf's Up all have to segue into one another. I'd wager they will use BWPS loosely to structure the thematic grouping and running order of the tracks, but that the internal structure of the songs as indicated from the original sessions will remain.

The completed backing track to THE CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN alone demonstrates why "original intentions" and BWPS-template don't always jibe. I think it would be in the best interest to present an assembly that differs from BWPS so it could have it's own identity. I have no problem with the sequencing arrived at in 2003/2004 - it's different from what was expected, but was very palatable. I agree, go ahead and sequence the original tracks in that order, but allow them to exist as separate entities in the form they were left in '67 when possible. I don't think there's any need to try and stitch them together.

That's how I've interpreted what's been said so far. Touch wood...

i think they'll put it together to make the best album they can.  which is what i want.  To me this means they'll have to include stuff that didn't make it into BWPS.  

On the subject of dates, I agree that if the boxset is going to be called, 'The Smile Sessions', then it seems wrong including any tracks, whether vocal or instrumental, that were recorded after May '67

Now....where would the start date be from? AGD's timeline states that the Dumb Angel Sessions started in Sept '66 but obviously the GV sessions started during PS.

Do we assume that sessions for GV won't be included?

Just throwing out a question :)

I'm with you dudes on this but something I was forgetting ...

Let's imagine they use BWPS to structure the tracklist, but keep the internal song structures vintage where possible, that would mean using the alt version of H&V to represent that song, but then you're losing all those cool Heroes sections like Western theme and Gee. I'm not saying I'm for it, but I can see the incentive to re-edit the actual songs to match their BWPS counterparts, certainly as far as Heroes goes. As one of the flagship songs they may want to build a slightly more majestic version than the alt 67 mix, or one that at least incorporates western theme.

Then this leads onto another question: Is it acceptable to create a mix of heroes that uses parts of the smiley version i.e. Sunny Down Snuff?

Really glad/excited to read about what Mark has to say about Surf's Up.

Mark your calendar people, because this may only happen once...I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with AGD has to say here, and pretty much everything he's said on this topic. I want SMiLE sessions, not the "completed" versions that came thereafter...if I wanted to listen to those versions, I would listen to them on the albums they were put on (Surf's Up/20-20). I'm so freaking amped for this!

Also in full agreement. In fact I couldn't give a foder what they put out, as long as this set comes to pass.  I have faith in the great guys putting this together that they will offer the very best they're able.

I'm sure we won't have heard the last of the SMiLE songs recorded during and after the SMiLE songs either, so I'm happy to accept this package, revel in its marvels, and listen to it perpetually until the band and Capitol decide we deserve a little bit more. Whatever that might be.

Given the almost guaranteed media fawning, I think we might look forward to deluxe editions of some post-SMiLE era albums in the years to come, perhaps even this year.

Optimism? On a Beach Boys board? Ain't it great to have the opportunity!

(checks calendar, scratches head...)  This wasn't supposed to happen until 12/21/12.  ;D

i'd be shocked if cabinessence isn't on disc 1.  i definitely want it to be, and i'm preeetty sure that the band (brian, mike, everyone) will want carl's lead on there.

Well, we knew that it would take something like the end of the world to get it released proper, now didn't we?

pfft.  Robots can't debate.  They've already decided mathmatically that You're Welcome ends the album.  Dumbass. 

Actually, I was talking about Jonas & I agreeing on something. Anything.  ;D

Does anyone else feel it was merely an oversight on Mark's part when he mentioned that the SMiLE bootlegs came out in the eighties?

I'm aware that it's been rumored about that most of the SMiLE material that has gotten into our hands for the most part escaped the vaults in the eighties but most of it wasn't booted until the late nineties.  I can't believe that Linett is unaware of the fact that since 1997 tons of "SMiLE" session material has gotten into collectors circles via the SOT releases and those like it.

Reading your last statement, I agree it would be great if this Smile set helps put the spotlight a little more on some of the later albums. Too many casual fans think the BB's creative spell ran dry after Pet Sounds/Good Vibrations and they became an oldies act. There's another 6 years of fantastic music waiting for people to discover.

Ah, I see you sort of answered your own question  ;)

I thought I posted this already, but now I can't find it.  So here it goes again:

I think it would be great to have a professional Brian vocal overdub on Surf's Up,then segue into the piano version.  Although I think it would be more appropriate to use the piano "demo" as the finished track for CD1.  We'll all be making our own versions with what we're given anyway.

As long as they are flying in vocals, they need to fly in the I'm in Great Shape vocals and the Barnyard lead vocal from the H&V demo onto the finished tracks. That's a no brainer, if they're trying to make CD1 the most "complete" versions they can be.  Of course they should include the tracks without the lead vocals in stereo elsewhere in the box.

If you look at what tracks are missing 66-67 vocals, we have:

Cabinessence - I suspect they will use the 68 Carl lead.

Child is Father - probably the instrumental 3 min track with the chorus vocals flown in or edited in.  Verse vocals obviously missing.

Worms verse vocals - but at least we should get the backing vocals without the tape speed warble of the GV box set version.

Old Master Painter - unclear if Brian ever intended the OMP part to have vocals, but it will be great to hear the Sunshine/false Barnyard fade vocals in decent fidelity.

That's it really.  Vegetables has all the lyrics and vocals and I hope the edit they use will include the Fade to Vegetables.  And we get the earlier version as well per Mark!

Dada/Water - no lyrics so no lead vocals, they wouldn't dare record new vocals with the 2004 lyrics!  would they?

One thing worth discussing here is which "new" lyrics on BWPS were 21st century creations, and which were vintage(but never before recorded). We know that the added lyrics on "Roll Plymouth Rock"(Do You Like Worms) are vintage. The lyrics for "Barnyard" & "I Wanna Be Around" are also vintage.

But, we also know that the lyrics for "On A Holiday" are a 21st century creation. But as for "Song For Children", "Child is Father to The Man" & "In Blue Hawaii", Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks have never stated whether these lyrics are vintage or not. Even if the lyrics for those 3 songs are vintage, there may be publishing related legal reasons to not tell us one way or the other.

i recall van dyke teaching brian the "is it hot as hell in here or is it me" lyrics in the bwps dvd.  can't tell if the rest is vintage though. 

I think they're all new - In Blue Hawaii definitely is.  Song For Children is a vintage melody courtesy of Darian's keen ears and a clarinet line bleeding thru on the tape, but possibly with new lyrics, and the Child lyrics are new.

Sort of off topic but I wonder if "Worms", "Look" "Da-Da" etc. are going to get their names back on this release?  Or will they be titled "Roll Plymouth Rock", "Song For Children" etc.?

I'm up for them flying in vocals where they fit, Surf's Up for example, but don't agree that adding the Humble Harv demo words to the Barnyard/Great Shape tracks is a good idea. Whenever I've heard that on boots it always sounds awkward to my ears. Obviously Mark has the abilities to do a good job, but he's not a magician. If the tempos and phrasing of vocals are too at odds with backing tracks I'd imagine no amount of technical wizardry can make a bad match work. I'd love to be proven wrong on this but that's my hunch.

Yeah, the "Humble Harv" demo vocals would not sound acceptable grafted onto the proper backing tracks in my opinion. In fact, I imagine that would be impossible without bringing along Brian banging on the piano as well. If someone insists on those two tracks having vocals, I would actually prefer Brian, Al, Bruce or Mike overdub a new vocal than try to make the demo vocals work but, of course, I don't want to hear that either!

As I see it, the "Surf's Up" grafting can work as can synching up the "Child..." chorus vocals with the edited backing track. Given that Carl's lead on "Cabinessence" is reportedly unavailable apart from the mixed 20/20 track, there may be problems there in creating a mono mix to match everything else. If they stick strictly to '66/'67 sessions and use BWPS as the template, then it's quite possible that the "album" will be missing lead vocals for "Do You Like Worms?", "Barnyard", "Cabin Essence", "Song For Children", "The Child Is Father To The Man", "I'm In Great Shape/I Wanna Be Around", "Holidays", "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (no "Fall Breaks" vocals) and "I Love To Say Dada". That's a lot of missing lead vocals. Then again, we don't know exactly what exists in the vaults, on acetates, etc.

Personally I don't read Mark as a big SMiLE fan.  He's a professional, and will do an absolutely awesome job, but are we even sure he's a big fan of the Beach Boys music?  I know that's crazy since he's done so much of it, but I don't get him as the die hard fan we are.  I've even got proof!

When he recorded the 2004 SMiLE, somebody (may have been me) was talking to him on here about Good Vibrations, and how the original was recorded modularly, etc. and he basically just said that they didn't do it like that this time because they didn't have to (the band was able to play several sections, like they do live anyways).  If he was a fan boy, he would have absolutely recorded it in sections.  Or maybe it wasn't his call.  Or maybe that doesn't have a damn thing to do with anything.

Still!  Mark's great, and he'll do a fantastic job, but don't just assume he's a huge fan of the material, especially THIS album.  

...and yet, Mark, along with Darian and everyone else, went out of their way to record everything else in a modular way to replicate the plan for the original sessions. "Good Vibrations" wasn't done modular because it had been previously released in that fashion and this was a way to present a new version of it.

Again, Mark knows this stuff and he is working with Alan who absolutely knows this material inside and out.

It's unclear to me if the H & V demo exists as a multitrack and if the vocal can be separated from the piano.  With Protools I can definitely see it being possible to fly in the vocal and correct tempo changes etc.  If it can't be separated from the piano, yeah, it would be almost impossible to do it well.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the "Humble Harv" recording came from the radio DJ just setting up a tape recorder next to Brian (and Van Dyke) and the piano and recording the interview and performance. Nothing about the sound of that recording suggests multi-track. It's an important artifact, but it's not acceptable to include in a SMiLE "album". Brian's poor enunciation of the word "agriculture" has created nothing but controversy on message boards for over ten years!

Van Dyke has in fact said all three were new. When asked if he penned lyrics for Child in 1966 he said he did although I don't think we know much more than that..

I think problems this would create would far outweigh any benefits owing to the H&V 'Humble Harv' demo not being a multitrack recording.

My hope is that something from the lost I'm in Great Shape vocal session turned up. Speaking of anyone have a theory regarding why the IIGS vocal session took place several weeks before the instrumental track (eggs & grits melody, tape explosion) was recorded?

<cough> "open country" <cough>

That's always been my understanding too.  I wouldn't mind it being included in this set, as it's a very important artifact like you said.  Unfortunately that's probably the best they can do, which is okay - unless, of course, a few acetates have been uncovered containing said lead vocals on those tracks  8)

I don't think you've fully grasped the concept of an engineer (vs a producer), it is NOT his call. He's not the one running the show, he's the one placing the mics around the room and hitting record. If they were to record BWPS GV modularly, this would have been decided by Darian, and ultimately by BW. Also, its been said countless of times that Mark has been involved with the BB's since the mid-80's...he's a die-hard fan whether he likes it or not! :lol

I'd argue that it just wasn't necessary: the modular approach works great if you don't know how you want the final product to sound, but that wasn't the case in 2004, and GV is a good song not because of its editing style.

And here's another opinion to throw into the Cabinessence pot, as if that's necessary: the first disc is already going to be a reflection of a product that came out in 2004, with 2011 edits, and the re-releasing/completion of tracks on later albums is a notable part of Smile's history. I'm not saying they should add "Cool Cool Water" or anything, and there definitely is a line to be drawn, but I don't think the 1968 version of "Cabinessence" crosses it. I can see four different versions on the set as "Stereo 20/20 Version," "Stereo Backing Track," "Original Track with Background Vocals," and "Stack-O-Vocals," ala The Pet Sounds Sessions and being done with it.

Also, the '93 box set has the completed "Cabinessence" on there, but also has the mono -- i.e, non-20/20 -- mix of "Our Prayer." Going off of an 18-year-old box set isn't super telling or anything, but for that it looks like strict adherence to original session material was just barely secondary to using versions that were as musically complete as possible (and the original "Our Prayer," arguably, already was). Case-by-case, drawing a line, etc.

The first IIGS vocal session may have been just Brian on piano and vocals.  Maybe Brian thought he'd overdub on top of that - kind of like he did for Vegetables in April, recording piano first, then vocals, then overdubs.  Then he changed his mind as he did constantly during the Smile sesions and decided to record a proper Wrecking Crew track.

Alternate theory:  first IIGS session was for another section of the song that was a capella or recorded just with piano.  Eat a Lot? Child? Barnyard vocals?

Good points, I was thinking the Oct. 17 IIGS could very well be the infamous Do A Lot with toothbrushing sound effects. I'm shooting from memory but isn't there evidence the Oct. 17 IIGS vocal session was with "all 6 Beach Boys" or did I dream that up?

10/17/66 was a group vocal session.

Hopefully there will be detailed credits in the box (translation: there damn well better be).

I think Brian recorded it on a tape recorder. I seem to recall it was found in the vaults on a reel labled 'Psychedelic Stuff' or something like that.

Hey there,

First post on this site.

I was curious what we thought about this quotation from the Linett interview: `We aren't missing any music which is heartening. All the songs were recorded." What exactly does this mean? Is Linett suggesting that he has found a Part 2 Surf's Up recording? Or by "recorded", does he just mean recorded in some capacity (ie. the Surf's Up "demo" counting).

More over, what about The Elements? Have all four pieces of the suite turned up? Or have we concluded in the past few years (without my knowledge) that indeed Wind Chimes and Vegetables are respectively Air and Earth? I have always been very dubious of such a conclusion so I'd be skeptical if we're seeing that again here.

What are your thoughts?

I think what Mark means is that all the music that appeared on BWPS had been recorded. Which makes sense, because they didn't record any new music for that release in the first place.
I'd like to believe that Mark's comment might mean that the missing second movement of Surf's Up has been discovered, or other elements. But I seriously doubt this is the case. I don't think Wind Chimes was ever air, nor was Vegetables Earth. I'm not even sold on the idea that Brian had intended to record all 4 elements. I think it's more likely that he wanted to do just Fire and Water.



God, whenever I see that yrplace is browsing these threads I'm always holding my breath that we'll get a few little tidbits!!!! If you're reading this Mark, I just want you to know you've been great to the fan community, and even though constructing the perfect Smile release is likely to be an impossible task, I'm thrilled that it's happening in the first place, and very confident that you'll give us all something to be happy about.

I'm no expert so I thought I heard two little pieces that I had never heard before: one was the little "canvass the town and brush the backdrop" melody that plays right before "Roll Plymouth Rock" and the other was the Civil War-esqe opening to "I'm in Great Shape". Had they been recorded previously?


That's a shame to think about. In all honesty, in my head, I can't imagine how he would capture the sound of Air or Earth the way he did so creatively and beautifully with Fire and Water. But then again, in my head, I couldn't have imagined Fire and Water before I heard them.


Wouldn't it be nice...

Seconded!

I'm just excited to hear songs like "Holiday" and "Child is the Father" with the kind of warmth and clarity that were brought to all the other tracks in the GV boxset. Anything on top of that is just icing.

Thirded.  Thank you, Mark, for all you've done to make this project happen!!!

Yes - the "Civil Waresque" piece is the cantina melody, no?  And the other melody is from Surf's Up, obviously.  Both of these were just recycled from other songs which have music recorded for them during Smile.

Yikes - I sadly never made that connection. Interesting though that the Cantina sounds like the 1880s while the opening to IIGS sounds like the 1860s. The fact that Wilson could capture a sound that typifies an era is perhaps what is most noteworthy of all.


Yes, though, unlike most of the rest of the BWPS music (as far as I can tell) there is no "like" version of these two moments in the old archives.

I'm wondering too how this quite measures up to Linett's remark that the new box set will even have "the little segues" that appear in BWPS.

Let's all pray other heads will prevail and there will be no segues in The Smile Sessions CD1!  Those were created and arranged by Van Dyke and Paul Mertens, if I recall correctly, from the Smile song melodies.  But the individual pieces didn't come from Brian - he wanted segues, and they came up with them.

I don't have a problem using Brian's demo vocal for 'Great Shape' or even 'Barnyard', I've heard acceptable versions of this.


the only thing that bugs me about the 'Barnyard' lyrics is the line "hit the dirt, do a two-and-a-half" sound like they were literally made up on the spot by Brian. I've actually taken "out in the farmyard" from the first verse and placed it over the "hit the dirt" line... it bugs me that much!

still not sure why they left that line in for BWPS... or went with "agriculture" instead of "open country" a la Humble Harv.  ;)

..I actually like the tape warble...I just wish the sound is clearer on this version, not as muddy.



Fall Breaks sounds Earthy to me...

Here's hoping to you being wrong. I honestly hope BWPS won't be the basis to the SMiLE sessions, I really want the Beach Boys' SMiLE to be its own entity. Also, I really truly hope there are some gems in the vaults that will really blow us...away.

Fall breaks IS Fire. Same song. its not earth.

Fourthed. Nothing but respect for everyone behind this project, because if they mess it up. There will be blood  >:D

I honestly don't know how he could have made a song sound like "Earth". Air, I could see - wind instruments, coke bottles (there IS footage of Brian orchestrating the boys in a coke bottle blowing round in the GV promo film/outtakes), and, um, wind chimes...

But Earth? I have no idea.

And the stakes are huge. You can play anyone Mrs. O'Leary's Cow or the Water Chant, not tell them what it is and inevitably they will say, "it sounds like a fire" or "it sounds just like water". You can't say by any stretch of the imagination that any other song we've heard from the Smile era sounds like earth or air.

I'm not saying it's Earth, just that it sounds Earthy to me....but it is not Fire...(MOC)...It is Fall Breaks. However, could he not have used theme and variations for the Elements?

Yes I can-well maybe not SMiLE!, but S.S....I stand by my Fall Breaks assertion.

The descending organ bass-line reminds me of the color brown, of dirt. The sllloowww growth of the plants, the motion of life in the Bands vox, a woodpecker poking holes in a tree...clashing of the branches of trees in the wind....the melodic repitition reminds me of the maddening, incessant drive of plants to grow...

That is just my own artistic interpretation, I really have no idea but certainly don't put it out of the range of possibility....

Why does there have to be all four elements? Maybe it only got as far as Fire/Water. I know that the illustration for 'Vega-Tables' says 'The Elements', but how do we know for sure that Frank didn't just sort of come to that conclusion on his own?

Worms, Great Shape, Barnyard, Cabin Essence and of course Vega Tables... all these songs seem to be about Earth. not sure if they sound like the earth. Sometimes I think the entire album was meant to comprise all the Elements.

I also like the inclusion of Diamond Head for that reason: all of the Elements are sonically represented.

Well, the one thing that works in your favour here is that traditionally Earth as an element was associated with the season of Fall.

That being said, Brian didn't seem to be all that interested in the classical understanding of the four elements. He seemed to be using them as a jumping off point more than anything. Besides it would have been confusing for him to conflate the four elements with the four seasons. (there was already enough confusing between his own band and The Four Seasons).

These seem to be two different points so I will tackle them individually:


There doesn't have to be, but it seems to be part of Brian's ambitious ethic at the time to record a suite that musically represented the four Elements in his style. The idea, after all, is located in Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Vivaldi didn't stop after only two concertos. I can't imagine that Brian would have wanted his Elements to only consist of half the elements.


I always thought this was indeed the case but, again, Linett says that all the music was recorded (which is really what led to this discussion). In that case, I'm curious what Linett means when he says that. Is he suggesting that all the music on BWPS can be found in the Smile Sessions? Is he saying that all the music for Brian's original Smile was recorded and the only thing he had left to do was complete the vocals and assemble the pieces? Is he saying they can locate all the music (ie. Part 2 of Surf's Up) in some shape or form, even if it wasn't officially recorded during the official studio sessions or simply cannot be located? Again, I just think this is an interesting quote to pursue.

Brian said he wanted to record a candle instead of a fire. That's what Fall Breaks is, a candle compared to a fire. I don't think Brian conceived of Fall Breaks as Earth. There's no evidence of that, and considering that it reuses the music from Fire, I don't think it has any relation whatsoever to Earth.
It just doesn't make sense to connect the two.

Regarding The Elements.
What knowledge do we actually have of this track? Well there's the handwritten note with "The Elements" listed. But that's been shown again and again to have not been written by Brian. Right?
Then there's the session tapes of Fire that start with "The Elements, Part 1: Fire". So that suggests there were to be more parts.
Finally there is an interview with Brian where he is asked what "Air" was. Brian responds that it was an unfinished piano instrumental, something which has never been heard by anyone (unless Mark has discovered it while preparing this release). I've never heard any further context for this oft-quoted answer, but I simply don't think this quote is any sort of definite proof. This is just my opinion, based on how unreliable Brian's interview answers have been, especially when concerning SMiLE. He could have very well been telling the truth, but based on everything I've learned about Brian and about SMiLE, I have a serious doubt.

But beyond these three things, what else is there? Is there anything else we know about the track? On what grounds do we fans believe there were to be "Earth" and "Air" sections? On what grounds do we believe that the different "parts" of this song would have all been lumped together as a single track?

What's interesting to me is that Fire is titled not "The Elements Part One: Fire" but "Mrs. O'Leary's Fire" or "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". The fact that this was to be the title places it along with Heroes and Villains and Cabinessence as songs about history and americana. What exists of Water does not have any connection like that, the Water material is simply "Water" and it does not even bear the same stamp as "The Elements, Part X" that Fire does. Certainly based on the handwritten tracklist (which we know was not written by Brian), we are tempted to conceive of a single elemental song. But based on the Goodbye Surfing article we know Brian planned to give Fire a separate title distinct from "The Elements", which suggests that there would NOT have been a single track named "The Elements".

Lets look at the general character of SMiLE. The central song of the whole project, Heroes and Villains, presents a duality. A conflict or battle between two opposing forces, the Heroes and the Villains. Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers, The Hip and the UnHip. This was representative of the idea of Ying and Yang, which is undoubtedly in the realm of the new age spirituality influences of SMiLE. Do You Dig Worms? is not about Earth! It's about this duality of history! The line "Rock, Rock, Roll, Plymouth Rock Roll Over" says all you need to know about this song. Firstly there's the pun, "Rock, Rock, Roll" which has a double meaning saying both Plymouth Rock is being overturned, but it's also an invocation of Rock Music as a medium for social change. The power of Rock and Roll is in this case allowing us to clear the cobwebs of history! And what's underneath Plymouth Rock? The same thing as any rock! Worms!! These are the worms in the apple of history! The truth behind our built up historical illusions. The song is not about Earth at all, but rather about changing how we view "Heroes and Villains" in our own history, "Do You Dig Worms?" is asking us to take on a new perspective where the cowboys and the cops are Villains instead of Heroes, it's a reversal of things, a new way of conceptualizing our own pasts!

SMiLE having two opposing elements, Fire and Water would make sense then! How do Earth and Air fit into the duality scheme? I don't think they do. And I don't think there is any evidence that there was ever a Earth or Air section planned. SMiLE is all about duality, the contest of opposing forces.


What I think happened was Brian was basically talking a lot about doing Elemental instrumentals. Doing different tracks about Elements or whatever. Carl probably wrote the handwritten note off from memory after having hung around Brian during the sessions that he attended. he didn't really know how things would fit together so he just lumped them all into one thing, "The Elements". But on my own personal SMiLE mix I would put Fire on Side A along with Heroes and Villains. And I'd put water (Diamond Head I think is very close to what Brian originally envisioned for the Water track) on Side B.

But please, feel free to disagree and tell me all about it.


I'd also like to add my thought that Vega-Tables is not at all about Earth either. The Vegetables in the song are drugs. On the early version of Vegetables there are different lyrics. "Tripped on a cornucopia". There is no way that line is not about drugs. We're talking about 1966 here, this is a psychedelic album, and Van Dykes lyrics are so infused with puns that it's impossible to ignore this lines connection to LSD trips. Vega-Tables is not a song about Earth, it's a song about spiritual and physical well being as a gateway to personal growth and enlightenment. The vegetables are not only the type of health food Brian was interested in (He did own a Health Food store after all, didn't he?) but also about the use of drugs as a source of personal actualization. Brian likely removed this early lyric for the same reason he did "Hang on to your ego", he thought it was too blatant and second guessed himself.
The recurrent belief that Vega-Tables is about Earth confounds me. It's based on nothing other than the idea, "vegetables grow from the ground". I really don't buy that Vega-Tables was ever earth.

There were people in Brian's circle at the time who described "The Elements" as a sort of 'opera', with the Chicago fire, which is then put out and followed by rebuilding. Which makes sense. You have "Fire", then "Water Chant" (presumably with some water sound effects), followed by "I Wanna Be Around/Workshop". Makes sense to me.


Brian stated that he wanted to capture the changing of the seasons from Fall to Winter with that track. An explanation which makes perfect sense, as it's indicated in the title.

I think that's a stretch. Firstly that assumes that Carol Kaye was correct that I Wanna Be Around was Earth. This has been disputed to no end. This also precludes the idea that each element was to be an instrumental, which goes against what is most commonly assumed about the track.
Also why is there a song about The Great Chicago Fire on the part of the album not about American history?
Also what about Air? How would Air have fit into the sequence you described. Chicago burns, water puts out the fire, the city is rebuilt, then air! It doesn't really follow the logic.
Also what does "I Wanna Be Around" mean? What does it symbolize? It's a Sinatra song. Brian was into recycling "traditional" songs. The reason he was doing this was because he wanted to weave a tapestry of American musical styles. That's what the "Americana" section is about. Which is why I do not think that bit was supposed to be part The Elements at all. I think Fire, if it was on the A-side, might have been followed by I Wanna Be Around. But I don't think it was Earth. It doesn't really fit in does it? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with Earth other than I guess, building things is "earthy", but that doesn't sound right. The connection just isn't there. This was a list of influences that was posted in another thread by Big Grin:

- "Gee" by The Crows/Jan & Dean
- "El Paso" by Marty Robbins
- "Peace In The Valley" by The Patuxent Partners
- "Roll Columbia Roll (Gran Coulee Dam)" by Woody Guthrie
- "Old Mc Donald" various versions
- "Barnyard Blues" by Original Dixieland Jazz Band
- "The Old Master Painter" by Dick Haymes
- "You Are My Sunshine" by Jimmie Davis
- "Waiting for a train" by Jimmie Rodgers
- "I've been working on the railroad" by The Tinseltown Players
- "Home on the range" by Gene Autry/Roy Rodgers
- "Frere Jacques/Brother John" by Fred Koch
- "Long Ago Tomorrow" by Burt Bacharach
- "I Wanna Be Around" by Julie London
- "In Old Chicago" (the story of Mrs O Leary's Cow) 1937 MOVIE by Henry King *
- "Cool Water" by The Sons Of The Pioneers
- "Blue Hawaii" by Henri Mancini/Elvis Presley
- "Ukulele Lady" by Duke Kamoku
- "The Pirates Of Penzance: I'm A Pirate King" by D'Oyly Carte Opera Company And Orchestra
- "Long Long Ago" by Jerry Gray And His Orchestra/Ellen & John Wright

"I Wanna Be Around" fits into these other songs, into Old Master Painter, into You Are My Sunshine, into all the traditional influences you can see on the Heroes and Villains material.
 
That's the overarching concept of "The SMiLE Shop" the SMiLE shop sells Smiles. The Smile Shop is a Record Store a Health Food Store and a Book Store all rolled into one. The Americana section of SMiLE is styled on a record store! The hyper-literate lyrics are styled as a tapestry of references to American literature.

The A-Side of SMiLE would have been a history lesson. A trip around the record store. A walk down the isles of a book store. It covers the past, the influences, the makeup of American cultural history. It would have been an extended medley of sections all copping from "traditional" American music and literature.

Right, well, I'm just saying that "I Wanna Be Around" works as a musical pun... "I wanna be around to pick up the pieces when somebody breaks your heart". Then you get the hammers and nails. Obviously, it makes no sense as an "earth" element, but I'm just going with the mini-opera idea Brian's friends were talking about.

Yeah it makes sense following Fire. But if we assume that The Elements was a single track that had four parts, one for each element, than how could I Wanna Be Around come after Fire??? It just doesn't work. That's why the theory that I Wanna Be Around would come after Fire actually fits nicely into my theory that Fire and Water would have been separate tracks. Right?

Also please share the interview with us about the opera idea. I'd love to read it.

I wish I could. I used to be a member of rocksbackpages.com, & I read tons of interviews. Alas, I no longer have a membership.

if windchimes is air, then it makes sense that it comes before fire. fire can't exist without air after all.

and the tag on windchimes starts very softly with just piano, then turns into a huge cacophany... similar to a windstorm.

this is similar to the candle or lamp leading to a raging inferno.



I'd really like to see SMiLE made into an animated film a la Fantasia...

Fishmonk - thanks for the Elements info. I had forgotten a lot of it and hadn't seen much of it before.

I should say that I do like your idea of dualism in the album but I have a bit of a different perspective. The dualism, for example, that is established in Heroes and Villains is subverted in Do You Like Worms. After all the traditional "heroes" and "villains" in American mythology (which indeed is played up in H&V) are typically cowboys and Indians. But Do You Like Worms make us aware of a counter-narrative of American history in which the heroes have practically destroyed the "church of the American Indian". In other words, who are the heroes? Is it so clear cut as Heroes/Villains? Or can there be such a thing as a Hero/Villain? In that sense, Parks rather brilliantly undermines the idea of dualism.

Consequently, I think the preoccupation of the lyrical content of the album is in de-mythologizing American history - Parks essentially makes this very point in Brian's A&E Biography. The Beach Boys, as the all-American band subvert the American story from within. The pilgrims of Plymouth Rock who displace the Natives take us to the subversion of New England-derived Puritanism of Wonderful. Cabinessence, of course, matches the tranquility of white settlers in the gold belt with the exploited Chinese workers "who ran the iron horse" that allowed for Westward travel and enormous riches for particularly groups of the population. Smile in many ways takes apart Manifest Destiny and reveals the erased stories that really drove American history. By revising US history, Parks and Wilson in effect "uncover the cornfield" by exposing the side of history we rarely (by 1966 standards when, say, scholars vastly underestimated the amount of Natives who died at the hands of European imperialism) see. As Love sings the coda to Cabinessence, we can hear an Asian melody just leaking through the Mark Twain-ish banjo and harmonica. This, I think, nicely sums up the lyrical thrust of the album.

Now, what does this have to do with The Elements? Well, not much. A good part of the album was equally invested in musical innovation by Brian too. Our Prayer was a contemporary hymn and The Elements, I think, was another part of this new way of thinking about pop music.

And, yes, I would imagine that at the very least Brian wrote all four parts or had an idea of what he wanted them all to be even if he never got around to recording all of them.

And while we're at it, what is the consensus of Surf's Up Pt. 2? It MUST have been recorded, right?

I've always thought this was a good candidate for the Air element - Brian said that Air was just a piano piece with no vocals.  He also said that they never finished it.  Maybe he meant that it was never finished production/mixing wise.  He might have wanted to tweak it with sound effects or something.  Anyhow, several very knowledgeable people on this board have shined this whole idea (about the "Wind Chimes" tag being the Air element).  Heck, they know better n' me!

Yeah, you're certainly right on.
But even in Cabinessence there is dualism. The dualism between the past and the future. The traditional atmosphere of the verses and the locomotive industrialization of the "chorus". Past and future, Heroes and Villains, Fire and Water.
And where do past and future meet? The present. To me THAT'S the subversion of the dualism idea. The idea that opposition is not really opposition. That even thought we have these two things that appear to be complete opposites, in reality they are totally interconnected and dependent on eachother.

This is psychedelic philosophy 101. Check out Alan Watts' book The Book On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. I'm certain that Brian had read this book, all you have to do is read the Goodbye Surfing... article. Brian echoes exactly the sentiment of the book in his description of Surf's Up at the end of that article. He practically quotes from it. What is the book about? The book talks about how dualities are connected to eacother. That you can't have life without death. You can't have matter without space. You can't have sound without silence. etc. etc. etc.

This is the "idea" of SMiLE! Not just a subversion of dualities, but the uniting of opposites. Just how past and future unite in the present.
 

Just wanted to chime in on "Fall Breaks...". It's not Fire, instead there was even a rumored piece of tape where Brian says something about walking through the snow while recording "Fall Breaks". Plus, a mid-90's interview where he talks about the track, if I could find it I think he mentions the changing seasons (or I could be remembering it wrong...).

I think it must have been more embryonic than that: Brian's comment about Air jibes well with what Anderle said in '67: "We were aware, he made us aware, of what fire was going to be, and what water was going to be; we had some idea of air. That was where it stopped. None of us had any ideas as to how it was going to tie together, except that it appeared to us to be an opera."

In any event it's not Earth. Just a reused SMiLE bit for a new song, new concept NOT related to The Elements.


Isn't that the same article where David says Dennis was originally supposed to sing Cabinessence, like some "funky cat" (is the term I think he uses) in the mountains.
There's just a lot of information circulating around, and I think I remember a thread where AGD had some factual issues with the information in that Anderle article. So it's really hard to get everything we've heard to jive with eachother. From that quote it's really hard to make sense of what that Opera comment was actually talking about, and the way he puts it "appeared to us" suggests that the idea was not of Brian's design but rather Anderle's interpretation. Maybe he's right maybe not. But it's certainly not much to go on.

Again, I have to question the quote about the "unfinished piano piece". Seems really suspect to me. Just a vague rumor that's been floating around for years. When was that quote from, what interview was it in? Who was talking to him? I could be totally wrong, but I have the vague notion that the information was told to a fan over the telephone or something, so to me, it's just very questionable how accurate the statement is.

If "Unfinished Air Instrumental" shows up on the SMiLE box I'll eat my hat. I just don't think it's real, and was just some off hand comment Brian made without really thinking about it to appease some fan who was asking him questions.

I always figured vegetables and I'm in Great Shape were "earth".

remember too that Brian was planning to make music with the actual sounds of water...

an idea that Steve Desper helped him get off the ground, but that Brian completely lost interest in.

I'm In Great Shape, as "earth"? I've never even considered that. But you know what? It makes sense.  ;D

I wanted to answer this first - This quote appeared in the Byron Preiss BB's book from 1978. Brian was interviewed by those doing research for that book when the BB's were studying and working at the Maharishi University (MIU album) in the latter half of the 70's, and I asked one of the people who did that research when he used to post on an earlier board about that very quote. It's Brian being kind of cryptic and vague, and he could be talking about any number of piano pieces, who knows -  but the quote is legit from Preiss' research and it was asked by one of the book's researchers in an official capacity, not as a random fan.

The context of that discussion on the older board was also about how Preiss scattered quotes throughout the book, and while it is overall very informative there wasn't much of a sense of context for the quotes, or where and when they may have come from originally. Hence the confusion over quotes like the "Air" comment in question.

Maybe that person reads this board and can chime in!

I agree with a lot of this. I may qualify it for my own interests by saying that he does not quite subvert the dualism of past and future with the present so much as by suggesting instead that the present is always bound to the past. Indeed, we still live in a world that was built on exploitation. In this sense, the album thinks of time not as linear but, I would say, cyclical, hence the tidal wave of history in Surf's Up where empires are ruined and built up again and ruined again. It is no coincidence then that such a song would be called Surf's Up - a song that not only owns up to surf n' fun past of The Beach Boys but also reveals the revolutionary aspects of rock and roll that is at the heart of the music too.

Again I don't think so. Is it just because Vegetables grow out of the ground? I'd like to hear more about why you believe Earth is Vega-Tables.

Quoting myself from a few posts above:
"I'd also like to add my thought that Vega-Tables is not at all about Earth either. The Vegetables in the song are drugs. On the early version of Vegetables there are different lyrics. "Tripped on a cornucopia". There is no way that line is not about drugs. We're talking about 1966 here, this is a psychedelic album, and Van Dykes lyrics are so infused with puns that it's impossible to ignore this lines connection to LSD trips. Vega-Tables is not a song about Earth, it's a song about spiritual and physical well being as a gateway to personal growth and enlightenment. The vegetables are not only the type of health food Brian was interested in (He did own a Health Food store after all, didn't he?) but also about the use of drugs as a source of personal actualization. Brian likely removed this early lyric for the same reason he did "Hang on to your ego", he thought it was too blatant and second guessed himself.
The recurrent belief that Vega-Tables is about Earth confounds me. It's based on nothing other than the idea, "vegetables grow from the ground". I really don't buy that Vega-Tables was ever earth. "


This is why I really think Diamond Head is what Brian had in mind with all that water FX stuff. On an early tracklist for BWPS he included Diamond Head. I believe they asked him to put together a list of SMiLE songs, or songs relating to SMiLE and he included "Diamond Head", and also, perhaps more curiously "Time To Get Alone".


Thanks for clearing that up! Really tantalizing quote. Wish there was more info on it.


This is exactly the point that Alan Watts made a lot in his book. About waves.
The Surf's Up lyrics basically talk about how institutions must crumble like "columnated dominoes". That all that artifice is built up, and clouds our ability to see the true nature of things. All the stuff about exploitation is part of that. The Micky Mouse version of history is one of those institutions that needs to come down in order for us to see things as they really are.
All the different dualities that I've talked about would have come together on SMiLE. Just like the past and future come together in the present. SMiLE isn't just about subverting history, it's about more than that, but that subversion is a big part of it. History needs to be one of the "columnated dominoes"

This is Brian's explanation of the Surf's Up lyrics:

At home, as the black acetate dub turned on his bedroom hi-fi set, Wilson tried to explain the words.

"It's a man at a concert," he said. "All around him there's the audience, playing their roles, dressed up in fancy clothes, looking through opera glasses, but so far away from the drama, from life—'Back through the opera glass you see the pit and the pendulum drawn.'"

The music begins to take over. 'Columnated ruins domino.' Empires, ideas, lives, institutions—everything has to fall, tumbling like dominoes.

He begins to awaken to the music; sees the pretentiousness of everything. 'The music hall a costly bow.' Then even the music is gone, turned into a trumpeter swan, into what the music really is.

'Canvas the town and brush the backdrop.' He's off in his vision, on a trip. Reality is gone; he's creating it like a dream. 'Dove-nested towers.' Europe, a long time ago. 'The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne.' The poor people in the cellar taverns, trying to make themselves happy by singing.

Then there's the parties, the 'drinking, trying to forget the wars, the battles at sea. "While at port a do or die.' Ships in the harbor, battling it out. A kind of Roman empire thing.

'A choke of grief.' At his own sorrow and the emptiness of his life, because he can't even cry for the suffering in the world, for his own suffering.

And then, hope. 'Surf's up! . . . Come about hard and join the once and often spring you gave.' Go back to the kids, to the beach, to childhood.

"'I heard the word'—of God; 'Wonderful thing'—the joy of enlightenment, of seeing God. And what is it? 'A children's song!' And then there's the song itself; the song of children; the song of the universe rising and falling in wave after wave, the song of God, hiding the love from us, but always letting us find it again, like a mother singing to her children."

...not debating. I am understanding of the title and past statements...I just hear the heaviness of that organ as something like roots, or dirt, or stumps- not the timbre of snow; and the percussive effects remind me of branches hitting together, the woodpecker at his work...-of course this interpretation is subjective as it is with all art. Is it Earth...not likely. Could it be? Well, was Brian smoking a butt-load of marri-ju-wanna at the time?

(I'm proabably just hypnotized by the cover- the green jungle of an exotic earth...leading to some weird hippie-shack with a Smile...)

Ditto.  Big Time.

sometime during the original sessions Brian was quoted as saying that the Elements related to the "get healthy" theme.
in that context, Great Shape and Vega-Tables would clearly represent the Earth.

First of all. How can two songs both be Earth?
Second of all, if the elements represent the health theme, how does Fire fit into that?
Thirdly, can you provide the actual quote? What session is it from? I don't think I've ever heard Brian talk about The Elements during the vegetables sessions.
Fourthly, if that were the case, how does either of those songs "clearly" represent Earth?

The lyrics to I'm In Great Shape:
Freshen [Fresh Zen] air around my head
Morning Tumble Out of Bead
Eggs and grits and lickety-split, look at me jump
I'm in the great shape of the open country [agriculture]

I guess I don't see the connection besides the word "country" I guess means "land" and land is Earth? If I'm In Great Shape is Earth than why not also Barnyard? They seem to have an equal connection to an Earth theme, because they both really don't.

It's a really vague connection that I don't buy. It doesn't fit. If the Elements are supposed to be instrumentals, neither of those songs fit. If The Elements are supposed to be an opera, or tell a story, neither Vega-Tables or I'm In Great Shape fits into that.

Also consider that Brian was strongly considering Vega-Tables for release as a single. If Vega-Tables was part of The Elements, how could it also be a single? That is if you have the notion that The Elements would have been one song.

Just none of it works. There's no evidence to support Vegetables or I'm In Great Shape as Earth. It doesn't fit and the only reason people think it does is because Vega-tables grow out of the ground.  


Vega-Tables seems to be about drugs. Listen to the early version, specifically the lyrics:

"Tripped on a cornucopia, stripped the stalk green..."
Tripped is a undeniable LSD reference. That line seems to be a pun for "I did a lot of drugs." the second line "Stripped the stalk green", I would guess is a reference to weed. The association isn't as strong as the first line, but it's not that big a stretch. Less of a stretch than Vegatables=Earth.
Listen to all the laughing on that version too. It's a stoner song for sure.
Also in that context consider the line "I threw away my candy bar and I ate the wrapper, and when they told me what I did I burst out in laughter." Hm...I wonder what he was doing that would make him do that?
Vega-Tables is a goofy stoner song. Not Earth. It's ostensibly about the Health Food that Brian liked, but it's a thinly veiled reference pot and LSD.

Also what's with the title "Vega-Tables". Sure you can just give a throwaway answer of it just being goofy and not meaning anything. But we're talking about SMiLE here. Why was the song originally Vega-Tables, and why did Brian drop that and just use plain Vegetables? I'm trying to come up with something. In Spanish "Vega" means "Fertile Plain" or "Tobacco Plantation", hmmm, that seems like it has the making of some type of Van Dyke Parks' pun. There is the German pun in the lyrics after all, right? But what about the Tables part? What could that mean? There are of course regular tables, but tables can also be some type of chart or database. Does Table mean anything in another language?

Even IF he's not, A.B. sure as hell is, & will undoubtedly be treating this project with the T.L.C. that he would give his own child! :)

Here is what I believe, after decades of observation, deduction and thought:

Fire - Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (no sensible debate here)
Earth - proto-Fall Breaks
Air - proto-Country Air
Water - Da Da.

Here is what we know, after decades of observation, deduction and thought:

Fire - Mrs. O'Leary's Cow (no sensible debate here)
Earth - was possibly Vega-tables once, otherwise no-one knows
Air - no-one knows
Water - no-one knows.

not sure where it was stated that the Elements tied in with getting healthy but i know i didn't make it up.
on some level I think the 4 Elements represented being in balance with nature, and I think the entire album represented getting "back to the earth" and back to our roots.


I think Great Shape and Barnyard went hand in hand, like on the Humble Harv tape. He's singing about the farm, chopping wood, rolling around in the mud and merda with pigs and sheep. What's more earthy than that?

And even if Vega Tables is about psychedelics and marijuana, it's still about things that grow from the ground that are good for you.
let's not forget Cabin Essence was a play on the word Cannabis. or that it's about fields of grain, waves of wheat, a home on the range, etc.
Earth, baby!


still, I'd love if there was an entirely instrumental Elements Suite.

we may just have to settle for Diamond Head... it's got 'em all.



what about that chant that repeats the word "water" over and over?


and I've just added Country Air to one of my SMiLE mixes.  ;D

It's certainly persuasive... but is there any hard proof or documentation ?

I'm really enjoying this discussion about the meaning of the lyrics in smile. I've never been much cop at deciphering lyrics so great to read these inisghts especially about duality, the worms on the other side of the rock and all that. With Smile I am bowled over by the beauty of Brian's music but I'm lazy when it comes to the lyrics. Amazing to think there's so much meaning buried in there.

As far as Elements goes, who knows. I think as another poster points out, fluidity is key and with Smile everything was in a constant state of flux, so if there was a plan for 4 different Elements at one point that may well have shifted into 1 song about Fire and one about water.

Personally I put a lot of stock in Carol Kaye's recollection that Fire was to be followed with IWBA/Friday Night. They sound right together to me - the perfect counterpoint of horror and humour - and I often wonder if that's not 80% of The Elements right there.

Didn't someone point out that they're actually singing "Wadooo" over and over!!

Always wondered whether Wake The Word should have a place somewhere in there, particularly the chorus's brass bass lines. Really ear-catching cos they're lively and fun to hear.

But I'll be happy with whatever Mark and Alan reveal/give us. Not just happy actually...

I too am enjoying the discussions, and while I have a hard time believing it all, it's nice to hear what others think Brian and Van Dyke were trying to say, and I'm enjying the reading immensely

However on your second point, you have my extreme condolences and I hope you will recover soon.
Any credibility Carol might have had, once upon a time, has long since disappeared;    I think it's very possible that she was megadosed by Owsley, which could account for her wild hallucinations.

A few comments:

"Heroes & Villains" does not contain any lyrics about "Cowboys & Indians"; Parks was too hip to perpetuate that stereotype as is evidenced by the reverence for the "American Indian" in other song lyrics. Brian may have had the boys chant like Disney cartoon Indians, but American Indians are not part of the conflict in H & V.

I, too, believe that "Vegetables" incorporates the use of drugs in a subtext; why else would you have the spoken words "wink wink" underneath the line about eating the wrapper if not to cue the listener in that the line has a hidden message (in this case, taking a tab of acid).

I think Brian's idea of doing THE ELEMENTS went the way of the BARNYARD SUITE. He started recording a portion of it ("The Elements Pt. 1"), but soon changed his mind. At what point did he change his mind? At the moment "The Elements Pt. 1" became "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow". We've assumed all four elements would have subtitles, but did Brian simply decide not to record any more "Elements" and include "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" (no longer referred to as part of "The Elements") as a stand alone instrumental track since it was already recorded? A week or two later, he freaked out over the fires and it was gone for good. "We can do a candle next time" - maybe this was a reference not to the "Fire" portion of "The Elements", but to a replacement track for "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" - in Brian's mind a parallel to the track he discarded.

I don't think any members of the group are actually singing "Water" in the "Water Chant" - is this actually notated as "Water Chant" on the original tape box or session sheet? If not, then it's just another cool chant and the evidence suggests that "The Elements" was abandoned after "Fire" was recorded.

Is Mike singing the "Now now, n-n-now now now..." line?

WOW!  Never noticed that before.  Here's something:  I was playing Hawthorne, CA. on the car stereo when the "Vegetables Promo" came on.  My wife, who teaches Elementary School, says the chant about, "Where's my beet, and my carrot" is a homophone, meaning beet = beat.  I think she's right about this.  Didn't someone use a carrot as a percussion instrument on this track ("Vegetables")?  The carrot keeps the beat!  I love all this weird and goofy stuff that keeps popping up!

Also, I did get my wife to teach her kids the "Vegetables" song to sing at some assembly.  Considering the drug stuff I maybe better knock that off! ::)

Better for them to be singing Vegatables, than most  of the crap available these days.  With Kids singing, no one will question it.

To be honest I think vega-tables being about drugs takes far more imagination than believing it is about erm... vegatables...

Still lyrical interpretations depend largely on what we bring to the table. I have never done drugs, so that possibility doesn't resonate with me.

Yeah, didn't somebody heroically go on and on about it in the face of gargantuan derision?

To be entirely and tediously pedantic, its turning up in the middle of a song called "Cool, Cool Water" is also fairly persuasive.  ::)

Yeah, Mike sings the stuttering "Now". And it's cool as hell.

Reminds me of that whole quote about riding the wave of now from that article reproduced in LLVS.

Does anyone know what the backing vocals are for the "Cornucopia" version of Vegetables?

I hear "Writing on the wall, dig a hole in the ground" or "Roll it on the wall, dig a hole in the ground" then the next line is "(inaudible).. ripped the buttons right off my shirt"

The words are very hard to hear - I have to use headphones to really hear them..

Also, does anyone hear a fart sound at 0:46 in the background of the Good Vibrations box set version of Vegetables? I have always heard it!

Andrew, you're arguing with yourself now! I think the "Water Chant" (what else to call it?) might have shown up in "Cool, Cool Water" the same way that the workshop sound effects ended up in "Do It Again": the track was available and had not been used yet.

I actually like to think that it represents "Water" (and it is suggested by placement on BWPS that this could be the case as well), but if we discard Frank Holmes' illustration linking "Vega-Tables" with "The Elements", we're left with only "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" and nothing else. Given that neither Darian nor Brian cared to be more specific about "The Elements" on BWPS again suggests that the idea for that track was a temporary one back in '66. Yes, you happen to get the three other tracks commonly associated with "The Elements" in the third movement, but where else would those tracks fit? They're not really Americana and they're not associated with the "Child is the Father" movement either. The fact that the four elements are vaguely suggested by the third movement is kind of cool and it's possible that Parks wrote his new lyrics to "In Blue Hawaii" with the idea that water imagery should be used for that very purpose (then again, the same logic would apply to simply following a song about fire with one with water as has been suggested earlier in this thread).

I've never done drugs either, but it's not too much of a stretch (with a pun like "Cabin Essence") to believe that coded lyrics might work their way in there to be hip. As Parks has said: "I did inhale."

Ha ha - I remember something like that. It was a bit of a stretch, but then, if you listen closely ....  ;) (it wasn't me, by the way)



:lol

I think the early lyrics are the key.

"I Tripped On A Cornucopia...."

I think you have to take this as a drug reference! We're talking about Van Dyke Parks here, how many puns are there in the lyrics to SMiLE? They're all over the place, even on Vegetables there's the well known potato pun. On Surf's Up you have stuff like "music hall a costly bow" etc.
We're so willing to accept all these puns, why is the use of "tripped" the one time that we want to assume Van Dyke wasn't writing a pun.

This is LA, 1966, right on the edge of the psychedelic era. It's been well established that Brian was heavily into pot, and hash and had used LSD as early as Summer Days. Van Dyke too, by self admission, was into these drugs.

The concept of "The Trip" is really important to psychedelic experience. Anyone who's ever done LSD will tell you that. The word "tripped" is just really really loaded in this context. Why do you think Van Dyke decided to use the word "tripped" if he wasn't trying to talk about drugs? It stretches plausibility to think that he simply picked that word by accident without realizing it's drug connotations. Again, look at all the puns in SMiLE, then try and tell me this was the one time out of all the SMiLE lyrics that Van Dykes lyrics weren't intentional. It just doesn't make sense.

The next line "Stripped the stalk green" I think is a reference to weed. Just that line conjures strongly the image of plucking nuggets off a green stem.

Plus all the laughing really stands out. SMiLE was a humor album, and what's funnier than smoking weed with your friends and doing silly chants? I think what happened with this song was the same thing as Hang On To Your Ego. Brian got scared and wanted to tone down the lyrics.

I also think this theory hurts the idea that Vegetables was Earth. I mean, LSD is synthetic. Brian also used hash it sounds like more than he smoked weed. Hash isn't "natural" but is a refined form of THC.

I've never really heard this theory stated before. But I'm absolutely convinced that it's right.


I was trying to figure this out too. Any ideas on what these bg lines mean??

I'd never picked up on the Vega-tables as drugs theme.   It makes perfect sense, especially with the cornucopia line.  It works literally, as well, so any drug reference could be plausibly denied if Van Dyke were pressed to do so.  

I fail to see how duality would limit the number of elements to two.  The outro to Wind Chimes does sound elementary, as does a fair portion of Holidays, as is presented on BW Presents, leading into Wind Chimes, thus creating a de facto air element.  Dada has been listed as water by many but it never worked for me.  It works as a backing track for In Blue Hawai'i but on its own, it hardly represents water.  

The four elements, earth, air, water and fire, were to be instrumentals.  Fire, as stated, is obvious.  Water may or may not be Dada.  Earth never felt right being vega-tables.  I sincerely hope that air was started by Brian and recorded in a demo form.  We'll have to wait and see.

SMiLE was never completed.  Therefore,  Brian never saw it as completed.  Smiley Smile was at best a reasonable facsimile.  Thus, he may have never stopped work on SMiLE in his head despite the SMiLE demons lurking inside.  Diamond Head wasn't all his composition but certainly fits the water element theme.  It also sticks out on Friends about as much as Transcendental Meditation does.  Unless another water element pops up, Diamond Head is the best option.   Fall Breaks isn't the candle that Brian suggested.  It is based on MOC, but the candle was never created just like the air piano piece...or was that actually created and just not finished?  Anyhow, Fall Breaks also fits the bill as the best alternative for earth.  That doesn't mean either is the historically proper choice.  They represent the best musical choices from what we have heard.   Hopefully', that will soon change but I don't suspect it will.

To my ears it's "Round, round, round, dig a hole in the ground" (as illustrated in the Holmes booklet) and later on "pop those buttons right offa my shirt".

With SMiLE anything is possible. It would certainly be ambitious for him to record a song for each element. However I don't think it's a certainty, and there's no reason we have to be so strict in assuming that there was four elements. I think that's an assumption that us fans make based primarily upon intuition. Considering that we've never hard anything of Earth or Air, it seems hard to believe that they were planned.
There were about 80 recording sessions for SMiLE, and Brian never got around to doing anything of Earth or Air. None of the session logs say anything about Air or Earth. If they were recorded they were recorded at sessions for another song, which seems weird. Really 80 sessions and Brian never even got around to making an attempt to record those two songs.
The Elements is a gaping hole in the SMiLE tracklist, it's just a mysterious void. It's the one thing of all the SMiLE music that we don't have. The one thing that we don't even have any evidence of even existing in any form. That's why I hesitate to jump on the "there had to be four elements" bandwagon. This void feels like it was made up by fans based only on the title "The Elements". We have Fire, and we know Brian was having his one friend record water sounds, we also have the version of Fire with the burning fire FX track. Brian's plan seems to have been to include a sound effect track of the element in each song. But there are no stories of Brian having his friends record wind, or "earth" (whatever that would sound like).
10 months, 80 sessions, not a single word about Earth or Air. It just seems really strange...


On "Holidays" I think the title Holidays gives us some insight into what Brian wanted to do with that song. Brian was into exotica records, as has been pointed out a lot.
I think Brian had made a connection, mentally, between different types of trips. There was the type of trip you take as a vacation to Hawaii, which is what exotica music was about. Then there's the type of trip you take mentally using LSD. I think exotica was a musical metaphor in the SMiLE music for enlightenment, states of expanded consciousness, religious experience etc...

Sorry but I don't understand the obsession with Diamond Head - can somebody explain please

Diamond Head is an instrumental about water containing sound effects.  It sounds very SMiLE like.  It has no historical basis in the SMiLE sessions and has multiple writers.  It shouldn't have any relevance to SMiLE except for the fact that SMiLE was never completed and never released.  Brian could have continued work on SMiLE under later album sessions.  There is no historical reason to include it.  Musically, there are multiple reasons.  It plays extremely well after MOC.  It has strong wave sound effects (could be putting out the fire).   It has very SMiLE like runs with the notes.  It exemplifies water.  It was recorded later with multiple writers...which seemingly would preclude it from any SMiLE discussion.   Musically, it just works!

There is also the fact that when Brian was asked to prepare a list of tracks for inclusion in the SMiLE live performances he included Diamond Head on the list as having some SMiLE connection.
Having multiple writers doesn't, I think, diminish it's claim. Brian did after all use You Are My Sunshine, Old Master Painter, and I Wanna Be Around, none of which he wrote.
Also Diamond Head is not really a "song" like a lot of others are. I think Brian was in charge of the session, had the ideas regarding the songs tone and theme, and then he gave his players a lot of latitude to improvise.

It works really well I think. When you hear all the stories about recording sound effects of water for use in The Elements, I think Brian essentially had Diamond Head in mind. I never really cared for the Water chants section as water, it's certainly not as mellow and evocative as Diamond Head is.

The other songs you mention were standards which Brian covered (one with a changed tense, exemplefying sadness).  Diamond Head is an original.

I think the composer credits for "Diamond Head" tend to indicate that it was a jam, conceived and worked up in the studio that very day.

^^^I agree with you AGD. But if I had to take a stab at who suggested doing an instrumental exotica track with water sound effects, I'd guess Brian and not the session musicians.

Right, but why does every song on SMiLE have to be written solely by Brian? I don't think it does. In fact they weren't, Van Dyke contributed quite a lot as well.
Diamond Head isn't a SMiLE track simply by virtue of it being recorded a year after SMiLE was ended. But I think a lot of the songs Brian did reused musical material Brian had written for SMiLE, and many songs were thematically very similar to Brian's preoccupations on SMiLE.

There's Wind Chimes being recycled into Can't Wait Too Long
Time To Get Alone has the middle section that cops from SMiLE
Wake the World has the same theme as I'm In Great Shape
Then there's the whole rumored link between air and Country Air (which I don't buy)

The point is, Brian wanted to do a track exemplifying water. He wanted to use water sound effects in it. That's all we know about Water really. In the whole Beach Boys catalog there's one song that matches that description, Diamond Head.
Brian recorded that with the help of session musicians and produced the session. He gave them room for improvisation on all the steel guitar parts, but the idea to do an instrumental water track using water sound effects came from Brian.

I've spoken to Al Vescovo, the steel guitarist on Diamond Head. the song is basically a steel guitar instrumental with sound effects, and he did indeed come up with it on the spot. he described Brian as being very animated and in charge of the sound effects: water in a basin, bonking rocks together, the reverb tube making the volcano sounds.


Diamond Head is not about water. Diamond Head is the famous volcanic mountain on Waikiki for anyone who doesn't know.
 
The song seems to contain all the elements: water, birds chirping (air), rocks and jungle sounds (earth) and volcanic eruptions (fire).

it works nicely both as an Elements piece and a happy ending in Hawaii a la BWPS.

I wonder if anybody ever turned up the tape of water effects that was going to be used.

Or am I having a hallucination based on "Glimpses"?

Might make for a Secret Smile Vol. 3...

You mean the ones Stephen Desper made?

Wiped  :(

I can't even begin to be able to debate with you all the points you're making, but I'm starting to think you're just trying to come up with new theories to give yourself a position in the SMiLE hierarchy somewhere.  
 On this one point above, tho:  I really doubt that Brian ever put thought into " Are LSD and Hashish natural or synthetic?" that wouldn't be anything that would flow from him, or VDP.  

As to the Four Elements, don't even get me started on that, because, as everyone knows, it's THE FIFTH ELEMENT that makes all the difference.   ;D

I'm going to rip that crown right off Dom's head!
But seriously. It's not a "new theory for the sake of a new theory", I think it's a really solid fit.
And knowing whether LSD or Hash are natural or synthetic don't require very deep thought. We're just talking about the basic properties of those substances that Brian was known to have used. In most psychedelic books I've read from the '60s they've recounted the origin of LSD, it's psychedelic effects were discovered by Albert Hofmann who was exposed accidentally. When Hofmann was riding home on his bicycle, he began tripping, and believed he was experiencing a psychotic break.
This story is why the bicycle is often used as an image in psychedelic music. Think, Tomorrow's "My White Bicycle". Also, think of the "Bicycle Rider" part on SMiLE itself. That connection was pointed out by Bill Tobelman and I think is certainly a valid point.

The point is, the story is well known and available to readers in many psychedelic books printed in the '60s. My argument was that if Vegetables was really a drug song, it makes it harder for Vegetables to be Earth as many of the drugs Brian was using were not natural. That's not complicated information and many people refine their own Hash using household materials.
It's just one nail in the coffin of the Vegetables=Earth theory, one nail of many. In my mind Vegetables is a drug song.

Again, the line on the early version "tripped on a cornucopia, stripped the stalk green..."
is really solid evidence. Van Dyke loved puns, and we know of many many puns he worked into the SMiLE lyrics. This is just one undeniable example. In the context of 1966 LA, in an environment of heavy drug experimentation, where words like "trippy" were common slang among the hip crowd, I don't think anyone can deny that "tripped" was meant as a double meaning by Van Dyke.

I really want to give props to Bill Tobelman. His theory is really the best one there is. I think people often forget that SMiLE is a psychedelic album. Of course there's going to be all types of references to drugs, new age spirituality etc. The Beatles had Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, The Beach Boys had Vega-Tables. The more I listen to the early version of Vega-Tables the more obvious it seems that the song is a drug song.

Except Lucy wasn't about LSD, at least not consciously. Lennon was pretty honest about which songs were written on or about drugs so I don't see why he would lie about this instance... OT. Sorry.

No I can see it your point though. It is a valid interpretation and certainly puts an interesting spin on things. Especially the bicycle rider reference. :)

I believe what the BBs did at home mostly stayed at home and didn't stray on to disc. They had a fan base of mostly younger kids and a clean image to maintain - they weren't ones o start trying to influence kids to take drugs. Yes they recorded vocals while stoned, but the lyrics weren't "hey kids, I'm high as a kite".  Even the oft-referred to "This is the worst trip" line on Sloop on PS was nothing to do with drugs, and had actually been used on earlier recorded versions of the song by other artists. Smile might have been psychedelic, but mostly on reflection.

I think the Sloop lyrics are much different than Van Dykes. It's clear on the sloop lyrics that it was not necessarily intended. But on the Vega-Tables lyrics I don't think you can deny it. Again this is Van Dyke Parks. Why is this the single time in all the SMiLE lyrics that a pun WASN'T intended? Seems hard to believe.
I mean what you described is the one of the fundamental conflicts of this era. "They had a fan base of mostly younger kids and a clean image to maintain", wasn't that what Brian wanted to get away from? I don't think there's anything about the SMiLE project that screams "we're clean cut". Wasn't that even part of Surf's Up, didn't an emotional Dennis complain to Brian and Van Dyke about their poor reception in Europe? Didn't Van Dyke say that Surf's Up was written to overcome that?
Also note, that version of Vega-Tables was never released. Because Brian was worried that it was too hip. It's the same thing with the well established story of Hang On To Your Ego. I don't think you can deny that there were drug references in Brian's music, because we had one undeniable example of just that, a drug reference that was removed from the final version.

Also, if the "I tripped on a cornucopia" lyric isn't about drugs, why did Brian remove it from the final reference. If the "tripped" wasn't a reference to LSD trips, then why take it out? What was Brian worried about?

'Hang on to your Ego'...Had Brian had his way that would have stayed on Pet Sounds - and that entire song is one giant drug reference LOL. And with SMiLE he had full control over what he wanted on that album...So I don't doubt that there were a lot of intentional drug references. And I think the younger fans would have been more pissed off at the incomprehensible abstract lyrics in SMiLE than over a few drug references.

During my phone call from Brian in 2005 to thank me for my Hurricane Katrina donation, I asked him if "Country Air" originated during SMiLE.  "No."  I asked him whose idea was it to write about air, his or Mike's.  "Mike's".

Having said that, I think we all know his replies aren't always consistent/accurate.  I still think it odd that in an album full of boy/girl songs (plus "Mama Says", a SMiLE remnant), we get a song about air.  So I also think it is possible that a proto-Country Air was the air section.  I also wonder if in his "piano piece - we never finished that" comment, he was remembering the "Wind Chimes" tag (as others have posted).

How I wish someone could get him to open up at length ("OK, Brian, one last time, and we promise never to ask you about SMiLE again!")  Assuming he even remembers.

Thanks

I'd say it's also telling that on the second go-round for "Vegetables", we have the "ate the wrapper" line which is the only line eliminated when the song is finally released.

At the same time, I don't think hidden drug references are the first and foremost aspect of SMiLE. "Vegetables" plays around with it and the title "Cabin Essence" is the most blatant reference (the subject matter of this song, however, doesn't seem to deal directly with drugs). Like with The Beatles' "A Day In The Life" ("had a smoke and went into a dream"), one could interpret that the state-of-being in a song like "Wind Chimes" as being drug-induced, but it works as a simple meditative song as well.

As to the idea of "Bicycle Rider" being a drug reference: maybe three or four levels down, but Parks' use of the phrase to both describe the European settler and a pack of playing cards (symbolic of the Native Americans being relegated to casino operators) takes precedent.

I don't get it. Could anyone explain it to me?

Cabin Essence
Cabinessence
Canibessence
Cannabissence
Cannabis

I personally think Fishmonk has built a solid case for the veggies/drugs duality.   I've always appreciated the song but even moreso now with the "new to me" information.

Country Air and Time to Get Alone have very similar themes and fit in well with the health part of SMiLE.   They are a case of carrying over themes which never saw fruition.  I don't see Country Air as an element but it seems to be borne out of the idea of an element.  Brian continued to compose material based on the ideas of SMiLE.

Haha, I never got that! And I, er, inhale rather a lot.

This is all a bit reminiscent of some excerpt from a book on Shakespeare I got in a lecture, wherein the author spends a good page or two detailing what the word 'Will' means. Which includes the 'will' to do something, he 'will' do something, it is his 'will', obviously, until he starts expounding that it means his junk, her junk, the act of combining the two, and so on until it gets to the point where you just want to say to them,  "Is there something on your mind?"

I think that's a stretch imo.

VDP, Prescient as always. Writes a reference to "native American Casino operators" who aren't even in exuistence until 1988 or so...

Why do we always think "albumwise"? Why do we always talk about SMILE as a finished product - but then it wasn't. The creation of songs is an ongoing, endless process. How do we really know SMILE was "abandondoned"? Was it really? How do we know Diamond head and many songs written later on couldn't have been on a later version of SMILE, like the one that was going to come out in the 70's? Yes, there was a track list back in 1966, but was SMILE really meant to be that way? We really don't know, do we? Only Brian knew for sure - or maybe he didn't... Or maybe he really didn't care... ;) Yes, we have the 2004 release, but in the early 00's Brian was another person, not the 1966 Brian that most of us know - and miss...

Yeah, maybe he' smessing with us for kicks. Maybe the '67 announcement that it was cancelled was just a put on. Maybe the later tracks that surfaced were just parts of a work in progress that he was teasing us with. Maybe the 2004 BWPS was red herring to make us think he'd wrestled it into submission. Maybe this year's box set is a ploy to put us off the scent for what's to come a few years down the line - and who knows -  perhaps that'll just be a big new red herring to fox us yet again!  And Brian's had this grand scheme in his head all along!  What a great guy... Geez...

Yeah, sorry about forecasting that lyrical reference a bit. I'll clarify and restate that the playing cards represent the vices (such as gambling) that would corrupt the "church of the American Indian" (this is pretty much what Parks himself has stated). Of course, the repression of Native Americans which is one of the themes of SMiLE is the main factor that lead to Native American-ownership of casinos in the U.S. so Parks wordplay continued to have resonance in new unexpected ways.

The neat thing about Smile for years has been the way someone could interpret the lyrics and the "what if?" missing components in many different ways, attaching a certain Smile phrase to a certain hidden meaning or even an obvious reference to an established fact and basing a theory around that attachment. From alchemy, to LSD, to beatnik culture, to drug culture, to the counterculture, there has never been a shortage of theories and that is one of the aspects I really like.

In the case of vegetables as a drug reference, it has been fascinating to read the opinions so far, but in my mind and based on the evidence surrounding the multimedia aspects of Brian's "vegetables" theme, I still hold the opinion that Brian was simply talking about vegetables, and it was part of his healthy food phase.

Note:
- Several photoshoots showing Brian around vegetables, at a vegetable stand, throwing vegetables with Hal Blaine, and shooting a game of pool with vegetables. Just plain old vegetables.

- Paul McCartney visiting the studio while Vegetables was being tracked apparently saw vegetables scattered around for visual effect, not to mention actually chomping on them for sound effects for the tune. Real vegetables.

- The vegetable chants, aka where "I've got a big bag of vegetables..." came from on the Hawthorne set. They're chanting about vegetables, and making it up as they go along. Nothing about drugs, no references, nothing where Brian encourages them to say anything other than vegetable names. Innocuous stuff.

- The vegetables skit with Hal Blaine and Michael Vosse. It's a long track, sure, but listen for any drug references throughout. Like the chanting, it seems to be more about vegetables than anything. Hal steals the show. But throughout I don't hear any suggestions they add drug references to the skit.

- An early 70's television appearance had the Beach Boys holding and handing out actual vegetables to the crowd as they played the song, a visual stunt which Brian did again when he played the song live in 2004 and had band members waving vegetables in the air. Innocuous fun, again, and more silly humor which is what he was about. Is waving vegetables around a symbol for drug use?

It's not to say any opinion is wrong or one is less right than another, but I tend to believe after seeing and hearing things like this that the song was about vegetables, and that's it. Brian was obviously on a healthy eating kick at the time, and part of that health obsession was to manifest itself in Brother Records projects, including a health album according to some, and it did show up when Brian opened the "Radiant Radish" health food store.

That's just my *opinion*, and I'll say again I enjoy very much reading what others take from the lyrics.

All good points - but Van Dyke had a sneaky way of putting in double meanings in most of his lyrics, so it wouldn't surprise me if he intended a drug reference or two in the lyrics.  But yeah, the whole song is not referencing drugs IMO.

There are dildo references in the Vega tables skit.. hmmmmm... Perhaps we have it all wrong.  :lol

I agree. But thanks for explaining LostArt !

Yes. Take 'Song Cycle', just three examples off the top of my head:

'Dreams Are Still Born (Stillborn) In Hollywood': which of the two shall it be, then?

'Frigidaire', or 'Frigid Air' (ditto)

'Toxicity' is sung as: 'Toxi-City' (L.A.?)

I think both are true. It's an extended metaphor.
Obviously Brian couldn't hand out eighths of pot at concerts so having the vegetables metaphor allowed him to cheekily talk about vegetables without anyone being the wiser.

One good description someone used in one of these recent SMiLE threads (i'm sorry I forget who), was that Vegetables was really going to "buzz like a beehive" with all types of whistling and chatter and chomping. That seems right on as to what Brian wanted to do on that track, make it "buzz".

The laughter that he was working on for the song was good too. Ostensibly laughter has nothing to do with vegetables does it? I mean, they really aren't funny in of themselves. So I don't think you can say the song was ONLY about vegetables. I mean then there are the lines,

"I tried to kick the ball but my tenny flew right off
I'm red as a beet 'cause I'm so embarassed"
"I threw away my candy bar and I ate the wrapper,
and when they told me what I did I burst out in laughter"

Now besides the word beet, neither of those two things has anything to do with vegetables. Kicking off your shoe and eating a candy bar wrapper aren't things that vegetables make you do. Vegetables don't seem to be connected.

The song has a goofy element that's hard to place. What's making Brian so distracted that he can't eat his candy bar right, what's throwing him off base? Hm.....

The point is there are definite elements that can't be connected to vegetables. That goofy element doesn't have a logical link to health food. It's about the goofiness of getting stoned with your pals.

I still also think people are underestimating Van Dyke lyrical propensities. In that context of the 60s I think the word "trip" had a more definite link to LSD trips than just regular stumbling. We're talking about a bunch of hippies here, we're talking about a hippy that was known for his playful punfilled lyrics. So I wonder why people think that this is the one time that it wasn't a pun.

I'll say again just to clarify, a great thing about Smile has been the way the lyrics can be interpreted and re-interpreted several different ways in order to back up a particular theory someone may be trying to put out there about the lyrical content. There will always be a gray area in this pursuit because even when a Brian or a Van Dyke says "This is what *that* was about..." you have people still saying "No it isn't." or "He must be forgetting, he's unreliable sometimes..." etc. And even more frustrating is that Brian can contradict himself from one decade to the next, and as I say all the time Van Dyke speaks in riddles. Ask him how the weather is and he may say "grinning like the grill of a Hudson Terraplane" or something. (I exaggerate of course). :)

It's a delicate issue to emphatically say "Smile is this and Smile is that" when in the case of vegetables being about drugs there is only speculation and opinion, sometimes in spite of the hard evidence. I'm also thinking of the issues around the lowercase "i" in the Smile album cover, and all of the speculation behind what that meant and how it was a metaphor for this or that when in reality it came from a Capitol artist far-removed from the album who thought it looked good, simple as that and not connected to any concept or symbolism.

For all I know, Van Dyke may come forward in a week and say "vegetables was about dropping acid and smoking reefer..." and everyone will say "ohhh....". ;D

I don't know if the lowercase "i" had any meaning at all, and I too figured that it was just something done by a Capitol artist. 

However, it's worth noting that both Brian Wilson and Diane Rovell DID actually write in an odd mixture of uppercase consonants and lowercase vowels.  See the handwriting samples in the other thread...
http://smileysmile.net/board/index.php/topic,10039.25.html

What about Vega-Tables? Why put the title of the song like that? I was trying to see if there was some pun in it, but couldn't come up with anything.

Vega-Tables
Vega-Tablin
Vega-Teroin
Beha-Teroin
beHa-tEroin
beHeroin
Heroin.

Simples.  ;D

Given Brian's interest in the sky, the stars, and astrology, I'd suggest:


Just check Wikipedia for 'Vega'. There is a lot.

Dammit Don you beat me to it!  Was just about to post that I always thought that separating out "Vega" had something to do with Brian's fascination with astronomy.  Nothing else really makes any sense.

I did check. Nothing really seemed to fit.

Vega is a spanish word that means "fertile plain"

checking a dictionary though:

Vega from Medieval Latin < Arabic واقع (wāqi‘, falling), from the expression النسر الواقع (an-nasr al-wāqi‘, falling eagle). The active participle واقع derives from the verb وقع (wáqa‘a, to fall, drop, tumble, alight, pounce).

Alright it's a stretch, but "to fall" "to drop" to "tumble"...........to "trip"?

Table from Old French table, from Latin tabula (“tablet”).
And of course table can mean to put something on hold, or a spreadsheet or database.

Vega-Tables = Trip-Tablet?
Okay I'll be the first to admit that it's less than likely. What it comes down to is where the title comes from, was this just what Brian put down as a whim on the session log? Or was that spelling what Van Dyke came up with?


But again, I think there are many elements of the song itself which can't be accounted for if we assume Vegetables was only about vegetables. The laughter, the candy bar lyric, the general goofiness...I think we have to admit that there is some meaning to the song beyond just vegetables and given Van Dykes love of puns, and the psychedelic context, it just seems to fit really cleanly.

didn't Van Dyke say that Cabin Essence = Cannabis?

Eh, Sir, there's something that still bothers me... my name's not Dan...

Haha!

Vega-tables
VIga-tables
VIga-tObles
VIgO-tObles
VIgO-tONles
VIgO-tONles
VIgO-tONes
Vigo-tone.

So BRIAN was behind the SMiLE bootlegs!  ;D

Yeah bro', and no doubt he himself drew that cover of '21 Little Ones'. Another mystery solved then...

Did Brian really want letters from people about their favorite vegetables?

Are you saying VDP meant the lyrics as a plea to send drugs to them via mail?  :p

Oops, messed up the quoting in my post - I plead not guilty to calling you Dan though  ;D

Did Brian really want letters from people about their favourite drugs?

That lyric has always seemed weird.
The lyric appears in the Smiley Smile version of the song, did the band get any influx of fan mail about veggies?

Do you guys think it was an attempt at myth-building? An element of mystique that would stick with the album? Like that it would be one of the cool things about the album that people would remember, that the band got bags of mail about veggies (or drugs)? In short, did Brian really want people to write him letters due to that lyric?

I was trying to think if there was anything obvious about that line, do letters symbolize anything? There's the faint connection that stamps were often coated in LSD. Perhaps that's the drugs most famous form. But that doesn't really shed much light on what that lyric is about.

Why would fans "feel better" by sending a letter? Did fans really need to confess what their favorite veggie was? Was it a source of soul-crushing guilt?

It's just a weird little inclusion.

Also listening to some of the session tapes, does anyone know what instrument Brian was toying with using? It's a very crystalline, glassy, smooth sounding keyboard. It sounds almost like a steel guitar, but the way you can hear it being played makes it sound like a keyed instrument.
I just heard that for the first time, and it sounds really cool. You can hear it on the Smiley Version, during the last few seconds of the song.

It's a joke! Like on kids TV or something! Why don't YOU tell Brian your favourite vegetable?

I think you are making pushing the lyrics a little too far in order to fit your theory. Like my shakespeare post way upthread, sometimes a vegetable is just a vegetable, man  :)

I think it is veering into Paul Is Dead territory. :p

I'm just throwing things out there to see what will stick. I'm sure some things were just jokes. Like the title "Vega-Tables" I think was most likely just Brian encouraging people to pronounce the word in a funny way. As vega-tables and not "vech-tables" as people so often do. However, just because some things were likely just supposed to be silly, or just a result of Brian's eccentricities, I don't think we should just take everything and sweep it under the rug and say every sort of queer lyric or idea was a meaningless prank that shouldn't be dwelled on. It's worth it to throw out theories and look at different lyrics and spend a second asking what the deal was. If we don't do that, what's the point of being Beach Boys fans in the first place?

I don't think it can be denied that Vega-Tables is about things other than just ordinary every day vegetables. Brian loved health food, he had a thing for vegetables, and he also used and loved drugs and surely appreciated the standard 60s mindset that drugs were a useful tool for self discovery. I think the song is simultaneously about both of them. That's what makes the song clever, it gives it depth. Looking at it in this new way has really increased my appreciation of the song, and now I can't help but imagine the final version as sort of a Tomorrow Never Knows type production with buzzing swirling wobbling popping sound effects in an attempt to recreate the "buzz" of different drug states. Brian recorded a lot of sound effects beyond just the chomping of vegetables, if the song was only about vegetables, why would there be all those other kitchen sink type sound effects.

In fact, if you have the DJ Mic Luv version of SMiLE, check out the part starting at 1:25. Listen to all the people coughing. Now why would Brian put a backtrack in of people coughing in a song that was about vegetables? Because vegetables can magically make a room full of people start coughing? I think you have to admit that this was likely a marijuana reference.

From the press release....  "Parks also introduced Beat-Pop artist Frank Holmes to create album sleeve art and a booklet interpreting the album’s James Joyce-mode lyrics."   Ah!  This seems very telling to me!  I don't think they would have mentioned Frank Holmes in the press release if they weren't planning on using his pictures for the album and box set.  Hooray, hooray, hooray!!!


Now, on to other things...   I'll know I’ll most likely be pilloried here, but I just want to put it out there that I, like a few others apparently, think they should use the post '67 Cabinessence and Surf's Up vocals for the Side One "near-to-finished” version of the album.  I want all the first time listeners to hear the magnificence of the finished tracks.  I don't want them to sit there and go, "Hmmm, I wonder what that would have sounded like with lyrics?"  Then the '66-'67 unfinished vocal version or instrumental track can be used on one of the other discs.  As for those who say, "But hey, it's called SMiLE Sessions, therefore you can't use anything past those dates," all I can say is, that is what *asterisks* are for!  Just place a little asterisk next to the song title to indicate that parts of the recording are post SMiLE Sessions era.  

My take is that anything which was WRITTEN or PLANNED, not just anything that was recorded, is historically accurate and indispensible.  Me?  I personally would love to have “reconnected telephone line” recorded anew – if it’s not found on a tape or acetate.  And even if this vocal is found – but only in bad sound quality – then I’d still love to hear it newly recorded on the existing backing track.  Seriously, I would.  Now I don’t expect to change any of your well positioned thoughts on the subject, but I have to be honest and say what I would want.  Now granted, if they record any new vocals my hope is that they let Al Jardine sing the lead, and that Mike, Bruce, and Brian are relegated to backing vocals, and that they do their absolute best to make it fit sonically with the rest of the vintage recordings.  Any new recordings should feature only the original members, meaning I would rather not have Darian, Jeff, Christian, or Al’s kids singing on it.  Also, I would rather not have a modern Brian lead vocal.  Only Al’s voice is still in top shape.  That being said, though, I would rather hear “reconnected telephone line” sung by ANYBODY than not to hear it at all.  (Though if it’s just sung by anybody, then it should be relegated to disc 2, or 3 or 4.)  Similarly, I would love to hear a modern Al Jardine lead vocal on “Do You Like Worms” if a vintage vocal can’t be found.  Heck, I wouldn’t mind hearing that on Disc 1 if it was done with enough integrity to the original recordings.  And if more lyrics from that period appear (either from Frank Holmes lyric sheets or elsewhere) I would love to hear them newly recorded, too.  I mean, if they’re not recorded for this project, when will they be?

The one thing I would not advocate for are newly recorded vocals of Van Dyke’s 2004 lyrics.  They are excellent for that project, but I don’t see any need for them on this set.  (Though, once again, if they were done tastefully, with an Al lead etc., etc., I don’t think you’d hear me complain too much -- though I would hope that the tracks would appear as extras, rather than on Disc 1.)

Again, I realize some of you will be dying to roast me over the pits of hell because of these sentiments, but I love what Brian and Van Dyke accomplished with their ’66-’67 SMiLE project, and I want to hear as much of it as I can.  If that means doing some modern recording for things that have been lost, or are in really bad sound condition, then so be it.  Give it all to me!  Don’t leave me wondering!

(And please be assured that I realize there is very little chance of the surviving Beach Boys doing any new recordings for this project.  So those of you wholly against my opinion most likely have nothing to worry about!  Please set your torches accordingly.  I, also, realize that any attempt at new recordings risks pushing the release date further and further away – so far away that it may never come out, especially with Al’s slow pace of recording!  That alone is reason enough for me to be on your side!)  

Love and merci,    Dan Lega

PS – I haven’t read the whole thread, only through page 4.  I hope I’m not repeating something that’s been argued ad infinitum already!

That's interesting... "Cabinessence" as a mixed up pun on "cannabis".  I don't think I've ever heard that before.  And I don't know what to think about it, either.  It seems a bit of a stretch but, still, I'd have to say it's plausible.

Love and merci,   Dan Lega

That info actually comes from Frank Holmes...
so It's not too much of a stretch  :smokin

We've actually been talking about Vega-Tables being about drugs. Take a listen to the "Cornucopia Version" that has the lyric "Tripped on a cornucopia/stripped the stalk green, and/I hope ya/like me the most of all/my favorite vega-table"
To me that's classic Van Dyke "tripped on a cornucopia"="I did a lot of drugs", the word "tripped" being a very loaded drug reference that Van Dyke and Brian were both well aware of. The "stripped the stalk green" also conjures the picture of plucking nuggets of weed of the stem.
Not to mention that Brian was engaged in recording a number of sound effects NOT related to vegetables. Sure there were the chomping noises, but he also recorded fits of laughter as well as coughing for use in the song. Activities probably more related to smoking pot than eating vegetables....

Ha ha, this is funny because I actually did write a letter back in 80 or 81.   I was 13, 14 years old and had just heard Vegetables for the first time and thought it was hysterically funny.  I didn't know where to write so I sent it to Brian Wilson c/o Caribou records.    I never heard anything back of course, and have no idea if it ever was recieved (doubt it actually, but who knows.)  
FYI: The vega-table I listed as my favorite in the letter was Broccoli.  

Ah, just got through the whole thread.  Info on "Cabinessence" = cannabis is from Frank Holmes?  That's great!  Doesn't really fit with the rest of the song lyrics, but that's okay.

I agree with the idea of "Vega-tables" being drugs.  I hadn't thought of the "tripped" and "stripped the stalk green" lines being puns, but I'll agree with the interpretation.  Especially since the "and I ate the wrapper" line has always struck me as something someone would only do when on drugs -- and as something that you would only find funny when on drugs!  (Because if you eat the wrapper when straight, then something is definitely wrong with you -- which is sad, not comical.)

Here's my vote to use the "Cornucopia" version on side 1 of the Beach Boys SMiLE.  (Though I guess the other version is mostly a Smiley Smile version, and so I shouldn't even have to put in a vote for it.)  However, I just remembered how disappointed I was when they didn't use the Cornucopia version in Brian's 2004 version!  (I hope that doesn't happen again.)

Love and merci,   Dan Lega


PS to Mark Linnett -- try pitch correcting "He Gives Speeches" to the same key as "Wonderful" and using it as a insert -- it should work like a charm and sound great compositionally!   ;)

As for the person who wanted to hear an all instrumental version of "The Elements", try this...

Earth -- "Fall Breaks and Back to Winter"
Air -- "Our Prayer"
Fire -- "Mrs. O'Learys Cow"  (use that composition only -- no "Bag of Tricks", "I'll be around", etc.)
Water -- Water Chant   (again, no "Cool, Cool Water"," Da-Da", etc.)

Each piece is about a minute long -- and while it's not all instrumental (i.e., "Our Prayer", Water Chant"), there are no real lyrics, per se, and in my opinion it's a killer of a suite!.  Okay, yes, it spoils the idea of using "Our Prayer" as the opener of SMiLE, but I think it's worth it!  

(Maybe you can try using "You're Welcome" as the opener instead?)

Love and merci,   Dan Lega

Dan, I agree with you about new vocals and how they should be treated if done...but apparently it would mean the end of civilization as we know it.

Civilization could possibly continue if Al sang a lead vocal for Worms.   Barring the discovery of a demo Worms lead, I'd love to see them try it out.  If it stinks, burn the tapes (or digital media).  Lyrically, it's the most important song from SMiLE in terms of laying out the pictorial history of the Americana Suite, however the suite pans out.  There'll still be a remastered backing track for purists.

I'd leave Prayer out of the elements.  It has always been Brian's opener.

Dammit, you were that close !  ;D

Al stated prior to the 93 box that "that's not Worms". Be interesting to know his reaction to a request to sing a new vocal for it...

 :) It's OK? It doesn't fit with the rest of the song lyrics, nor does it fit into the historical time period where at least a large piece of the song is set, with the "working on the railroad" or the whole "home on the range" section which suggests frontier America. Bring in the modern section, with Dennis playing the "truck drivin' man", and consider this: Most truck drivin' men who would choose a drug would be taking some kind of uppers or speed to stay awake rather than smoking weed which would do the opposite. So even taking the literal meaning of a "truck drivin' man", how does cannabis fit into that interpretation?

I'm just pointing some of this out because some of the interpretations being suggested need to be hammered, chiseled, and sculpted a certain way in order to fit a theory, where a song like Cabinessence has a number of interviews suggesting exactly what the song was about, and we're going to brush those aside?

If Frank Holmes says the song is a code for cannabis, how many times did Frank actually meet with Brian Wilson in 1966? It's my understanding Van Dyke was the go-between who took lyrics to Frank and may have played him acetates of the songs so he could illustrate the lyrics...I'm saying this because it's happened where Michael Vosse or David Anderle who were much closer firsthand witnesses to the Smile project in contact with Brian than Frank Holmes, have made statements on the record in the past, naming specific details, and yet their words or memories can't be trusted or are simply wrong according to some. Yet Frank Holmes supposedly says Cabinessence is about pot and that's the way it is? I'm skeptical.

The song may not be about pot, but the title may still jokingly reference pot.   Yes, the song is about the frontier, the railroads and Chinese laborers - but there's (potentially) more to it than that if the listener cares to explore it.  IMO there's "in-jokes" all over Smile.  Other groups were doing the same type of thing.  The Beatles had "turns me on" in She's a Woman, and "tit tit tit" in Girl (just a couple of examples.  Those were little in-jokes that not every listener would pick up on, but they knew some would, and it also amused them to slip such things past the censors.
I also don't think the old west setting was necessarily supposed to be so rigidly literal, though it's fine to see it that way, but there's certainly enough room for lots of wiggle as far as interpretations.

yeah i think if anything, it's just a pun in the title.  Van Dyke referred to it as an "american gothic trip".  trip could be drug, but then again that was his lingo. 

Saying it's a "trip" was definitely a drug reference but by now the edges have been smoothed out and it's just part of the general language. I use the phrase all the time just to mean if you're on my trip you're seeing things the same way. Or on a trip like an exploration of knowledge or something. No doubt if you know the history where it came from but it's not what I'm referring to when I use that phrase.

It's amazing how drug lingo gets incorporated into everyday language over time.

Off-topic, I wish "corporate speak" of the variety mocked in the Dilbert comic strip and movies like "Office Space" would disappear entirely...if that stuff ever leaks into everyday conversations we're doomed.

Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays!  On Thursday, even!  Go out and drink some green beer to celebrate the day.  If you don', then a Shamrock Shake from McDonalds will substitute nicely.    :hat

Just going stream of consciousness here, boy I'll bet Capitol is *pissed* that they still have to pay Frank Holmes for that cover.  If they would have somehow got their paws on it, they could have used it for free.  They're probably very used to either making their own covers or buying the photos, and here this guy figured out how to own the thing all these years and make that money over and over, lol.  Good for him. 

I always thought it was meant like this: vegetables make you healthy - when you're healthy, you fell good - when you fell good, you laugh

Just thrown in and I think those thoughts about "Veggies" as a drug reference in one way or another may be right. In "Beautiful dreamer", talking about the tent, Brian used "Sandwiches" as an alternative to "smoking hash". Maybe it comes from that same idea (anyway it's funny and one of my favorite parts in the documentary). But since this is Brian Wilson, I wouldn't take everything too serious. This is the same guy that later wrote "Solar system". It's just his kind of humour








I just watched some parts of the Smile-DVD yesterday and in one of the bonus-interviews (I believe the one where Van Dyke interviews Brian), Brian mentioned Broccoli as his favorite, too....

I honestly believe he was trying to make a song that would convince children to eat their vegetables. 

My sarcasm is sometimes mistaken for genuine anger - I actually haven't worked in an office environment for 10 years!

I like the suggestion: Since everyone is Irish today, I'll substitute a pint of Guinness for the green beer, and try to leave no lines on the glass as I drink it... :) While listening to Vega-tables, of course. Cheers!

Not only children but adults too! Borrowing from Bill Tobelman, who I hope chimes in, Brian was seeking enlightenment from many sources at that time, and one of those outlets was apparently healthy eating. Along with astrology, psychedelic drugs, exercise, meditation, Subud, Zen philosophy, etc.

If folks want to believe Vega-tables is more about drugs than about eating healthy vegetables, that's all good but that's also just an opinion until proven otherwise. I still enjoy reading the theories and taking them as opinions, it's interesting stuff.

And they make you cough too? hm...that doesn't sound right.
Now what makes a room full of people cough? hm.....

Smog! It made an entire city cough, and it made Brian Wilson mad enough to call the cops...  ;D

I was only talking about the laughter.
Of course you can also choke on vegetables which will make you cough. But as pointed out, I was only talking 'bout that laughter




BTW a little something else:
Some youtube-user posted his Smile-mix (probably based on BWPS, haven't heard the whole thing on youtube yet) which could be a way that will be done for the official project. Here's Surf's Up with Brian's vocal flown in but still using the backgroundvoices from the '71 version : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVycA74kT7I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVycA74kT7I)

i prefer the end coda to kick off with the "a children's song" line. 

They're sick because they didn't eat their vegetables.

Since we now have several threads discussing the meaning and/or subtext of "Vegetables", let me change (return?) the thread with this...

If the new SMiLE SESSIONS set is to stick to only the work done during the months when the album was being actively recorded, should "I Love To Say Dada" be excluded? We know Brian had already scrapped SMiLE, so this track would not have been a part of that album. Along the same lines, suppose Brian informed Derek Taylor in early April about his decision (in order for Taylor to meet his deadline); would the April sessions for "Vegetables" have to be left off the set? Ah, but you say that Brian (or at least Capitol) was still talking about issuing SMiLE after SMILEY SMILE had been released. Okay, but then when do the sessions actually end?

This points out the problems with containing SMiLE to a specific timeline and why that may not be the best way to present it in the new release.

I noticed that someone mentioned an interview appearing in March '67 that stated that Brian was having trouble with one track - "The Elements". Well, then you would think that track would be the one he was actively working on. In fact, apart from "I Love To Say Dada" being worked on for a couple of days two months later (after SMiLE had been announced as "scrapped"), there was no attempt at further work on "The Elements" (and there's little to no evidence that ILTSDD was really intended for "The Elements"). Instead, the track Brian seemed to be having trouble with was "Heroes & Villains" and, after that, "Vegetables". As I noted in another thread, I really think Brian was focusing on just completing a single (first "Heroes & Villains", then "Vegetables") and that active work on the SMiLE album ended in mid-January.

Unless the new set is only going to cover August '66 to January '67, I don't think we should automatically exclude work that continued on songs that were announced for SMiLE after the "official" sessions ended. Ultimately, it is about those songs and they should be as well-represented as possible.

Along those lines, what do we know about the June 3-7 Vegetables sessions?  AGD's site says that, unlike the subsequent Smiley Smile sessions, which were at the home studio, those early Vegetables sessions were recorded at Sound Recorders and Western.  Were they labeled as Smiley Smile sessions at the time?  Was the With Me Tonight fragment from Hawthorne (which the booklet notes has the same bass line as Vegetables) recorded on one of those days?  Could those sessions possibly be characterized as Smile carryover in the same way that so many try to characterize the DaDa sessions?

No doubt I'll get a couple of very absolutist responses (AGD?) stating that Smile ended on 5/18 and Smiley Smile began on 6/3, and there's no room for debate, and I shouldn't even bring this up.  And maybe that's true.  Or is it?

i don't think we'll hear smiley smile vegetables session stuff, cause i seriously doubt smiley smile wind chimes or wonderful will be in there. 

The slow "I know that you'll feel better ..." from Smiley Smile Vegetables is in BWPS, and Linett said that BWPS is serving as a blueprint.

The 'absolute' cut-off date for SMiLE is a very interesting point for me.

Clearly, Brian informed Derek Taylor it was over, and then turned around and proceeded to work on Da Da and who knows what else? Since, Da Da was arguably part of The Elements, it most certainly belongs in the SMiLE session dates, IMO. In fact, I'm not opposed to including dates from way later in the SMiLE sessionography. Can't Wait Too Long and Cool Cool Water are in there as far as I'm concerned -- the key element is whether they were recording at the home studio or not.

These songs, in many peoples opinions, belong in the bonus tracks from Wild Honey, but they sound more at-home with SMiLE, IMO. What really matters is that Brian continued to tinker with SMiLE long after he 'scrapped' it.

well that just means it's a map, the tracklist may be similar, it's what goes into each song that'll be interesting.   Thats up in the air till it comes out i guess.

When was that bit recorded? I had no idea that wasn't from the SMiLE sessions.

I don't think anyone knows exactly when.  Anyone have opinions, based on the sound of that bit, whether it was likely recorded in the home studio vs. professional studio?

Definitely a professional studio. Brian wasn't getting vocals to sound that good at home!

The liner notes (track-by-track)  in the 2-fer booklet (by David Leaf) mention that this last part of Vegetables was a piece of the SMiLE-version.

The very last piece ("I know that you'll feel better" with chimes) is clearly from Smile.  The piece directly before that (the slow "I know that you'll feel better") is not, or at least has never been said to be.

It's probably from the Western sessions in June. Technically not SMiLE, right? But still before the band moves to Brian's home studio. The quality of the recording, along with the reverb, indicates a pro studio; the vocals done at Brian's house have a dry, claustrophobic vibe throughout much of SMILEY SMILE (which is why I'm pleased that Mark added some much-needed reverb to the "Heroes & Villains" vocals when doing the stereo mix ten years back).

I don't think we should expect the TSS box to use firm dates for "start" and "end". After all, the PET SOUNDS SESSIONS include "Sloop John B", recorded long before the rest of the album, but exclude other (ultimately) non-PS material recorded in the late summer/fall of 1965. Just because PET SOUNDS hadn't "officially" started recording in July 1965 doesn't mean we'd want to exclude "Sloop John B" sessions from the PSS box (well, maybe some people would, but I think I made my point...).

It is supposed to be from the April sessions, so still Smile proper.  As did the Hawthorne With Me Tonight and a beautiful attempt to remake Wonderful for the third time (on the Sea of Tunes Smiley Smile sessions set).

Personally, I think they should include ALL of the Smiley Smile sessions and outtakes with this release, and include a new stereo remix of the Smiley Smile album from the 8 track tapes.  Because Smile ultimately became Smiley Smile, didn't it?  One problem:  we'd have to add two more CD's to the package.

Yeah, it'd be much easier to draw the line after that album.  But eh.  They'll do whatever they're going to do. 

smiley smile and smile are two different albums so noo.

Haha, I was just thinking it'd be pretty funny if this project got scrapped and we got The Smiley Smile Sessions instead.

I'd love a Smiley Sessions too!

that would be a bunt instead of a grand slam...

I tell ya what'd be cool: a free Grand Slam from Denny's for every box set purchased!

But in that case SJB was on the album and was on the tracklists for the album but you know whatever they choose to do on TSS will be cool I'm sure.

I'd be happy to know that you're right about the slow "I know that you'll feel better."  What makes you say that it was recorded in April as opposed to June?  I don't remember hearing it on any of the Smile sessions discs, or anywhere other than the Smiley/Hawthorne Vegetables version.

As for the Hawthorne With Me Tonight, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.  The Hawthorne liner notes say it was recorded in June.  Are you saying that you think it was actually March or April?

On a related note, anyone have thoughts on when Whispering Winds was recorded?  SMile or Smiley Smile?

OK, to answer part of my own question, the Hawthorne liner notes seem to say that the slow "I know that you'll feel better" was recorded on 3/3/67.  Thoughts on Hawthorne With Me Tonight?  On Whispering Winds?

Nearly laughed wine out of my nostrils.  Help yourself to a medal and take the rest of the month off.

OK, to answer part of my own question, the Hawthorne liner notes seem to say that the slow "I know that you'll feel better" was recorded on 3/3/67.  Thoughts on Hawthorne With Me Tonight?  On Whispering Winds?
[/quote]

Based on the sound of With Me Tonight, it sounds much more like the April Vegetables sessions than the June sessions that produced the Smiley version.  No hard evidence though.  If you were to insert it into Vegetables, would it fit into the Smiley or Smile version better?  (There was an insert for Vegetables recorded April 6 I believe)

I've never heard anyone suggest that Whispering Winds wasn't recorded during Smiley - and it sounds like it's from that era/studio from the sessions on the Smiley Smile SOT.

Wind Chimes is in a different key on Smiley, isn't it? If so, the Whispering Winds section wouldn't work with the earlier version.

Based on the sound of With Me Tonight, it sounds much more like the April Vegetables sessions than the June sessions that produced the Smiley version.  No hard evidence though.  If you were to insert it into Vegetables, would it fit into the Smiley or Smile version better?  (There was an insert for Vegetables recorded April 6 I believe)

I've never heard anyone suggest that Whispering Winds wasn't recorded during Smiley - and it sounds like it's from that era/studio from the sessions on the Smiley Smile SOT.
[/quote]

I certainly don't have any evidence that Whispering Winds was recorded during Smile, but I have a few reasons for thinking that maybe, possibly, it could have been.

1- The way it was tacked on to Smiley Wind Chimes with very, very low volume could be BW's way of saying, hey, we did a lot more for this song during Smile, but I'm going to keep it hidden from you (as he did with most of the rest of Smile).  Why else would he record such a beautiful section of that song but make it so hard to hear?

2- He used in on BWPS.  I believe that everything else on BWPS at least was written during Smile (though I'm not sure about all of H&V).  It would seem strange for him to include something that had no connection to Smile at all.

3- It sounds more like a Smile bit than a Smiley Smile bit.

As for its inclusion on the SOT SMiley SMile sessions, I'm not sure that means a whole lot, given that they made other mistakes, such as making the Can't Wait Too Long tag a H&V SMile track.

Anyway, just speculation.

Here's a question,
what mixes of SMiLE songs did Brian personally do?

Wait... you don't think that was hilarious?  Maybe you just don't get my style.  I'll take the medal, but I'll be back tomorrow for more SMiLE updates.  Talk to you later, Boiled Egg.

 :hat

Edit:  I guess this is off-topic now, but I would really love to get the Smiley Sessions after this.  I know I'm just being greedy at this point, but whatever.  Didn't someone (Alan Boyd?) confirm that they have everything they need for a stereo mix?  When I heard the Smiley version of Wind Chimes in stereo for the first time it really opened my eyes to the entire album.

Er, the fact that "Sloop John B" is actually on Pet Sounds is probably why it was included in the Pet Sounds Sessions box.

Great question - anyone?

Yeah, it'd be cool if they do a Smiley Smile set, and then just go COMPLETELY insane and do a Love You box set.  Never happen, but since everybody's waited 45 years for SMiLE, I'll wait the next 45 years for a Love You box set. 

Hey, only 13 years to ago for Love You and maybe only next year for Smiley.

I replaced the Wind Chimes fade with the same piece from SOT 17, and inserted Whispering Winds where the SOT 17 piece cuts out.  I've got to say it sounds pretty good.

I've been going through my old SMiLE mixes from the old days. I found two Wind Chimes -- one was pitch-shifted to accommodate the Whispering Winds bit, so I think they are differing keys.

So - please tell me - do we have a starting date and an ending date for Smile? E.g. they started recording Smile on [insert date] and ended on [insert date] ??   Hmmmm  :-\

I'm not sure that Brian sees it as finished yet. This box will just be an interim release, like Al's Postcards EP. SMiLE will be finished when Brian aks us to sanction its validity, and we give it our stamp of approval. Not until.

In 5 years after the release of the SMiLE set, Capitol will re-issue it in full stereo...then 5 years later in a fancier package and a better mix...then after another five years some more missing SMiLE stuff will magically appear to be issued...

One thing to consider regarding "Whispering Winds" is that the melody is based on the vibes part that ends "Holidays". When using "Holidays" to create "On A Holiday" for BWPS, it was logical to segue into the "whispering winds" vocals to introduce "Wind Chimes".

One curious thing about the "whispering winds" vocals is the reverb. Unlike all the other vocals recorded at Brian's home studio, "whispering winds" has that pro studio sound. Did they achieve that reverb by recording in an empty swimming pool? I know there was talk about how the pool was used for this purpose, but all of the vocals on SMILEY SMILE (aside from the pro studio-recorded segments of "Heroes & Villains" and "Vegetables") sound very dry, like they were recorded in a living room without effects (apart from tape speed manipulation).

Brian did mixes of some songs, mostly mixes of sections of songs, and he edits on some other songs that he never got around to mixing.  
Mixes:  Good Vibrations, obviously

Prayer (with edit of next last to section)

Worms (no vocals on verses, no vocals on second Bicycle Rider chorus)

Heroes - single of course, cantina version, mixes of sections edited together on SOT, mixes of cantina section and other sections, lost acetate edits/mixes

Cabinessence - several mixes of the sections of this combined together in different ways, no final mix of the entire song

Old Master Painter/Sunshine - acetate mix with backing vocals on "false Barnyard" - unclear if a tape of this was found after the GV box set (Linnett suggested a better source for this had been found in ICE magazine after the GV box set was released)

Wonderful - first version with Brian's vocals mixed and only exists as a mono tape as far as we know, also a backing vocal (yodelling backing vocs) without a lead vocal mix

Child - mono mixes of the verses, middle eight, and chorus with two different backing vocals, plus a completed instrumental mix of the entire track edited together (3 minutes)

Barnyard with backing vocals/animal sounds
 
Wind Chimes - he did a mix of this on acetate described by Vosse but it's not been found, unless it shows up on The Smile Sessions

Vegetables - on SOT there are mixes of all the sections, some with overdubs not on the multitracks (you can hear the overdub attempts on SOT), including the great "Fade to Vegetables."

The Elements - there's a mono mix with crackling special effect, on SOT

I Wanna Be Around/Workshop - master was edited together at end of session by Brian and the engineer but no mono mix known

This is from memory, I think Look was edited together but not mixed.  Can't remember if Holidays has a mono mix or not.

Correction:  no Fire mono mix.
And he did edit the Wind Chimes multitrack sections together - leavinga couple of seconds of empty air space between two sections that Linnett edited out for the GV box set mix.

Yeah, great. We'll all be either deep under the ground, turned into ashes, or senile - only a lucky few will be in an old folks' residence, clattering with their dentures, and holding on to their Zimmer frames when the postman at long last delivers that 6 CD Love You Sessions box set. They will turn on their hearing aids to 11... then the the triumphant yell by Carl will come... 'Roller Skater Child'... 'HARRRR'... and then the last of us will simultaneously drop dead like flies.

What a prospect.

Could be worse – the Postcard From California Sessions box set has been scheduled for release shortly before Sol goes supernova, subject to tinkering...

 :lol right-o! Currently I am enjoying the big, big moon that's over us now in the clear early spring skies... that, together with the announcement of the SS box set is enough to make me happy for the foreseeable future.

While I tend to believe there are drug references in Vega-Tables (thinking of the times, it would be strange if there were NO drug references on that record), I really think it's too much a stretch to believe "Cabin Essence" is a wordplay with "cannabis". I'd believe it if there was a can o' biscuits in one corner of the cabin...  ;D  As we're at that, why not claim the title was a reference to the novel "Ape and essence" by Aldous Huxley? It nearly rhymes, you know?  :-D

And for the "wadoo" chant: When Cool Cool Water was included in the 10 Years Of Harmony sampler, they printed the full lyrics of every song on the fold-out cover (or the inside sleeves, that I'm not sure of), and for the chant section the lyrics read: "Water, water, water, water..."

i find it weird that people think that the lyric is "wadoo".

There's about 14 minutes of session tape for Whispering Winds on SOT 18, so that might answer these questions.  I'm not able to listen to them closely right now, but it at least sounds clear that it wasn't recorded in a swimming pool.

I always heard it as 'water' and I don't have the intention to change my perception just because a few nutters on the internet are going off the deep end because they can't bear the terrible void in their lives suddenly brought about by a certain announcement the validity of which can only be empirically tested at the precise moment when delivery trucks will arrive at numerous record stores and solidified versions of the fantasies as yet merely describable as 'pipedreams' of said nutters will be unloaded and offered for purchase.

Ahh of course you could switch Prayer to the first opener (becomes an intro) and then FBFTW becomes a perfect link to MOC

Genius

My preferred "Elements" - replace "Prayer" with "Country Air" and you're there. Even - back in the days of cassettes - did an edit of "CA" that excised the choruses. Know what ? It sounded some good.  ;D

I don't want to be a "nutter" about it, but I always assumed it was "water, water, water, oooh" until I listened to the SOT session disc. There you can hear the first vocal overdub (there's around three or four vocal overdubs) and it is very clearly sung as "wa-doo, wa-doo, wa-doo". The overdub of the "aahs" help to give the impression of the "er" sound.

Seriously, at some point, I think the Beach Boys decided it sounded close enough to "water" to stick it in "Cool, Cool Water" and be done with it! As we know, lyric sheets can't be wholly trusted (case in point: Bryan Ferry's CD reissue of THE BRIDE STRIPPED BARE actually contained lyrics taken from a fan site that were hilariously mis-transcribed). Of course, this is really only a problem for those who demand to know what Brian was thinking in '66/'67. If everyone in the Beach Boys decided that was the "Water" chant in the ensuing years...well, it's the "Water" chant. Then again, maybe Brian thought "wa-doo" sounded more like water than "water"!

Hi roger -

please don't take my irony too serious. And thank you for your interesting insights...

Even if it was "wadoo", that sounds more like "Water" than "wa-wa-ho-wa" does!  ;)

I get the "nutter" ref, saucy Don.

Anyway, the point is it does not say "water".  Does its inclusion in a track years later make it mean "water" years before? Was it even recorded years before?

Does the inclusion of the "woodshop" make a track about rebuilding after a fire? Maybe but probably not.

Seems like a lot is taken for granted with very little known, but that's just me.

I'd be happy with the theory that Brian substituted "Wah-der" for "Water" for the simple reason that the letter "t" in "water" would have made for an awful noise click-spitting into the microphone.  I've always heard it as "wah-der" but understood it to mean "water". 

I'm sure there are other examples of this in rock history and indeed in drama productions (though I can't think of any of the top of my head).

This reads like a quite slight post, but I think there is a  lot of wisdom in it. SMiLE mythology has built up to such an extent that I myself discover on a regular basis that what I take to be set in stone is in fact quite fluid and open to debate - exactly because over time, ideas turn into suggestions turn into assumptions turn into dogmas turn into 'fact'.

I always assumed it was "water."  But in the sheet music from BWPS, it is irrefutably printed as "wa-doo".  But since that was 2004, let the argument begin that it has no bearing on what they were singing in 1966.

And FWIW, the BWPS "Surf's Up" lyrics include the phrase "to a handsome mannered baton" instead of "to a handsome man and baton" in the 1971 sheet music.   The latter always made sense to me; the former not so much.

If you need a definitive answer ( "to a handsome mannered baton"  or  "to a handsome man and baton")  ask Fishmonk.

 :lol I'm sorry, but that was hilarious...With all due respect to Fishmonk I can appreciate a good analysis of VDP lyrics...but there is no definite meaning to it all; which imo was the point of the lyrics- an abstractness/amiguity...

I always sing it as "Handsome mannered baton..." it is a smoother line, and I like it because of it's abstractness.

I didn't realise it was printed as wa-doo in the BWPS lyrics!

Surely this chant has to be based on water. Brian did the underwater chant with anderle etc. (referenced in one of the articles in LLVS) then said he was planning to do a similar thing with The Beach Boys. I always assumed that the 'water chant' was the result of that thinking. I guess as Don points out, everything is fluid when it comes to Smile!

Does it need to have "water" in the lyric to be about water? Isn't it enough that the darned track bloody well sounds like water?  ;)

Also, if it is indeed "wa-doo," that still suggests water.

What do people do after a fire burns up their stuff?  Naturally, they cry.  And what are tears made of?  Water.  Not just water of course, but the chant wouldn't really have sounded right if it had included "mineral salts" and "enzymes."

In any case, at the risk of being savaged by the literalist crowd, a double entendre like this would not be unusual for Smile.

What does it mean, though? I mean, you're reading it as 'a handsome mannered baton', or 'a handsome man and baton', but you aren't really listening to it! You're ignoring the obvious here. What does he mean by 'baton'? Do you think he's being literal about it? I don't, I think he's talking about the 'passing' of a baton, like the 'passing' of a joint. You guys aren't really listening to the music, man!

I assume you're being sarcastic here; while I can't speak to the "handsome mannered baton", the "handsome man and baton" would be the Drum Major, the leader of a marching band.

Or in this precise example, the conductor of the orchestra. Here's Brian's own explanation of what the lyric of "Surf's Up" means, just days after the Columbia 12/15/66 session:


At home, as the black acetate dub turned on his bedroom hi-fi set, Wilson tried to explain the words.

"It's a man at a concert," he said. "All around him there's the audience, playing their roles, dressed up in fancy clothes, looking through opera glasses, but so far away from the drama, from life—'Back through the opera glass you see the pit and the pendulum drawn.'"

The music begins to take over. 'Columnated ruins domino.' Empires, ideas, lives, institutions—everything has to fall, tumbling like dominoes.

He begins to awaken to the music; sees the pretentiousness of everything. 'The music hall a costly bow.' Then even the music is gone, turned into a trumpeter swan, into what the music really is.

'Canvas the town and brush the backdrop.' He's off in his vision, on a trip. Reality is gone; he's creating it like a dream. 'Dove-nested towers.' Europe, a long time ago. 'The laughs come hard in Auld Lang Syne.' The poor people in the cellar taverns, trying to make themselves happy by singing.

Then there's the parties, the 'drinking, trying to forget the wars, the battles at sea. "While at port a do or die.' Ships in the harbor, battling it out. A kind of Roman empire thing.

'A choke of grief.' At his own sorrow and the emptiness of his life, because he can't even cry for the suffering in the world, for his own suffering.

And then, hope. 'Surf's up! . . . Come about hard and join the once and often spring you gave.' Go back to the kids, to the beach, to childhood.

"'I heard the word'—of God; 'Wonderful thing'—the joy of enlightenment, of seeing God. And what is it? 'A children's song!' And then there's the song itself; the song of children; the song of the universe rising and falling in wave after wave, the song of God, hiding the love from us, but always letting us find it again, like a mother singing to her children."

The record was over. Wilson went into the kitchen and squirted Reddi-Whip direct from the can into his mouth; made himself a chocolate Great Shake, and ate a couple of candy bars.

"Of course that's a very intellectual explanation," he said. "But maybe sometimes you have to do an intellectual thing. If they don't get the words, they'll get the music. You can get hung up in words, you know. Maybe they work; I don't know." He fidgeted with a telescope.

or the orchestra conductor...

Thanks for sharing Brian's explanation again - that's always cool to read and it's probably the most detail Brian has ever given on what a song's subject matter meant to him!

While the orchestra conductor interpretation is more than likely what Brian took from the lyrics (even though he didn't mention this directly), I am struck by how Parks uses the term "handsome". With his back to the audience, the physical appearance of the orchestra conductor would not seem to matter much whereas a Drum Major as the front man for a civilization (?) marching behind him would benefit from being handsome. Given the surreal combination of images going on (a pit and pendulum would not actually be seen in a theatre where an orchestra is performing a concert, right?), I don't see it as contradictory to Brian's interpretation that a Drum Major is leading a procession.

Yep, no need to get "hung up on words"...but it's fun to discuss the potential associations the songs elicit  ;)

I've often wondered if Brian pointed Van Dyke in the direction of this poem by his childhood favourite, Edgar Allan Poe (note the first stanza):

  The Conqueror Worm

    Lo! 'tis a gala night
    Within the lonesome latter years!
    An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
    In veils and drowned in tears,
    Sit in a theatre to see
    A play of hopes and fears,
    While the orchestra breathes fitfully
    The music of the spheres.

    Mimes, in the form of God on high,
    Mutter and mumble low,
    And hither and thither fly—
    Mere puppets they, who come and go
    At bidding of vast formless things
    That shift the scenery to and fro,
    Flapping from out their Condor wings
    Invisible Wo!

    That motley drama—oh, be sure
    It shall not be forgot!
    With its Phantom chased for evermore,
    By a crowd that seize it not,
    Through a circle that ever returneth in
    To the self-same spot,
    And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
    And Horror the soul of the plot.

    But see, amid the mimic rout
    A crawling shape intrude!
    A blood-red thing that writhes from out
    The scenic solitude!
    It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
    The mimes become its food,
    And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
    In human gore imbued!

    Out—out are the lights—out all!
    And, over each quivering form,
    The curtain, a funeral pall,
    Comes down with the rush of a storm,
    And the angels, all pallid and wan,
    Uprising, unveiling, affirm
    That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
    And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

I often wonder if this edit of windchimes with the syncopated counting in between sections is the version Vosse was talking about. That counting definitely sounds like it was edited to sound the way it does - it's not just an accident. Admittedly the version Vosse describes sounds incredible and had them in fits apparently but remember those guys were smoking a lot at the time.

But then this is only Brian's interpretation (unless Van Dyke told him that it means this, which as far as I know he didn't.)

I don't think there's much mileage to be had trying to work out what the lyrics mean. VDP was an arch ironicist, joker and knave, and almost certainly - given the amount of time he spent writing them (what did BW say - whole song written in an hour, half an hour?) didn't intend any specific meaning for the words at all. VDP is a very sharp, intelligent guy with an obvious love of the absurd, and the whole Surf's Up lyric is basically a series of puns, jousts, juxtapositions, amusing rhymes and clever, tricksy word play. It's basically just demonstrations of how clever and witty its author is. Its the author having some fun. I don't really believe that it was ever intended to mean anything. It's just a piece of art created from words to be set to music.

Um, yeah. I was being sarcastic  ::)

Now here's another clue for you all...in the "Cool Cool Water" sheet music, the lyric given for the chant is "wa-ter, wa-ter".   And yes, I agree whether it's wa-doo or not, the track is likely about water.

Yes! My hunch is that Parks was similarly a Poe fanatic as most of his lyrics from that time period tend to be in that style.

Check out this line from The Coliseum:

"Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!"

Damn Poe and his acid alliteration.

Oooo now that is an illuminating cross reference, no mistake. Nicely done.  8)

This reminds me that I was reading Thoreau's WALDEN a few years back and noticed, within about 15 pages of each other, several phrases, ideas and combination of words that would show up as SMiLE lyrics! I can't remember specific examples, but I believe "Wonderful", "Cabin Essence" and "Surf's Up" appeared to reference them.

As to Parks' intent in writing the lyrics: even in free-form, stream-of-consciousness writing, the author's ideas or preoccupations are going to emerge regardless of whether the author has planned for this or not. It's just the way people communicate. In other words, it's not necessarily calculated but intuitive, which is the way Brian works as well. We've certainly seen where Brian has combined a set of lyrics with one of his "feels", then went about arranging a song that evokes a particular idea or emotion that Brian himself has trouble explaining in an interview after the fact. Just because Brian has difficulty relating the idea verbally doesn't mean he's incapable of relaying that idea via the song. Parks, on the other hand, is very articulate, but his intuitive, stream-of-consciousness writing style may actually relay ideas and emotions he's not sure how to articulate in an interview. You can call the SMiLE lyrics amusing nonsense, but in combination with the music and arrangements, those lyrics are going to evoke ideas and associations that come directly from the author's brain no matter how hard he tries to not say something.

For someone who is so admittedly articulate, in interviews it's amazing how Van dyke can talk for several minutes without directly answering the  question posed to him.

Missed his vocation - should have been a politician.  ;D

Two minor observations:

(1) Brian talking about Surf's Up is as lucid and brilliant as I've ever read him.  His brain velcro definitely picked up some Van Dyke fluff along the way.

(2) Sheet music is outrageously untrustworthy.  Trust me.  Years of experience at Warner Chappell and Music Sales.  'We haven't got the official lyrics - just write down what you think it is' was a disappointingly common working procedure.  Cavalier stuff.

This thread is seriously starting to F%#K with Fishmonk's formula

Boiled Egg, can you please explain a little more about this process?  I've always been curious how sheet music arrangements, lyrics, etc were prepared and assumed they originated with some basic material provided by the artist.  For BWPS in particular I've wondered if it originated from Darian's charts.

An opera house and a music conductor.  Metaphorically speaking.  Ya know? ;)

Oh I get it!




no, not really......I got nothin'  :(

 ::)

Considering the "Pit & the Pendulum" reference, this seems like a reasonable hypothesis.